The second-step resource is for women who want to transition to a more autonomous level of existence without violence after their stay at an emergency shelter. In Quebec these resources were sorely lacking. It took us a long time to mount the funding for our resource.
I do respect the Canadian government. We didn't go through CMHC. We went through the Société d'habitation du Québec. The funds were very slow in coming, I have to say. That has nothing to do with anything other than the way the system is set up. I'm wondering how it can be made more efficient so these resources can open quicker.
In our case, we're going to have 17 apartments, which is probably going to be the biggest one in Quebec. We're going to provide the integrated services as well. We're going to have a community kitchen and it's going to be fabulous. It's not going to serve only the Shield of Athena; it's going to also handle women coming from all areas of Quebec, particularly the three shelters that have not had any second-step housing in that area for at least 30 years.
I've been around for close to 30 years and there has been no development of second-step housing in Laval until recently. With the new federal funds, a lot of emergency shelters that I know personally are going to add second-step resources quicker. For that, we're very thankful.