Maybe I'll start on that and then ask President Sheppard-Buote to jump in.
It's been a challenge, because we don't want to be seen as throwing anybody under the bus. That's why, in my criticisms of the distinction-based, we're saying that there has to be a consideration for remoteness, for those who live in the north, for women and for a number of different intersections in terms of what makes up an indigenous person. We're trying to add a voice with regard to the urban. We say “urban”, but we have friendship centres in Inuvik and Happy Valley–Goose Bay. They're not the typical big, urban spaces. They are just off reserve, and typically not in Inuit Nunangat. Sometimes they are in Métis homelands but not part of Métis settlements. It could be in communities of over a thousand or five thousand, or in major metropolitan areas.
I think the piece we're trying to get across is the service component. As friendship centres, we look at people in terms of what they need and in terms of service delivery. Who they are in terms of how they identify is important to us, but we're also considering the factors that they need. We're trying to respond from a service point of view. We don't dictate who we get calls from. People who are living in urban spaces, if they need support and they know that there's an indigenous organization that might have a better understanding of who they are, will call that organization. They will call regardless of whether they're first nations, Métis or Inuit. They're there, they need something, and they need an organization that understands who they are.
We're finding that friendship centres have now been getting an increase in calls. The friendship centres in B.C. are not just at capacity; they're at overcapacity in terms of the services they're providing. The financial resources from any level of government have not materialized yet. As I said, we got notice yesterday that we will be getting funds from the indigenous community support fund in the amount of $3,750,000 across 100 different organizations. As the NAFC, we chose to write a proposal on behalf of all of our member friendship centres, because we did not want to have the burden put on the local friendship centres, who are in it every single day. I've had executive directors say that they've been sleeping overnight in the homeless shelter because of their lack of staffing. We've had people say that they had a 25% increase in requests at their food bank and ran out of food in an hour, or that they haven't been able to get access to some of the personal equipment. We've been getting stories from across Canada on just the service needs...and going from place to place to place, knocking on doors, trying to get some kind of financial support and some kind of financial recognition that we're there, we're doing the work every single day, and it has not materialized.
It has materialized in some of the local centres in some of the larger areas—for example, with the Vancouver Foundation and local foundations, where they've been able to get supports from some local centres—but until the federal funds start flowing from the federal government to us to the friendship centres.... The provinces have announced, to a certain extent, some indigenous funding. We don't know yet if that will go to friendship centres. Ontario seems to be the only province that has actually committed funds that friendship centres will be able to access. However, the work has been happening for the last six weeks. For six weeks the friendship centres have been doing this work without that financial support. I don't want to say that distinctions don't matter, but when you're in need and you're calling somebody for help, you want that help to show up. We've been doing our best.
I hope that answered your question. I was just trying to express the need that's there, the work we've been doing for the last six weeks and the support we're trying to get.
I will say one last thing. We've been hearing from a lot of first nations about the supports for their off-reserve, and we've been trying to meet those needs. A lot of our friendship centres do have good relationships with their local first nations. I think one of the best problems we will have is that our people will have not just enough, but too much; you know, I don't think it's going to be a problem.
I think that the more supports we can get out, the more supports we can make available for people and the more options they have to meet their needs, will only serve the people on the ground. I think we should be doing the best we can to make sure that we coordinate our efforts and resources, plan and work together, and ensure that there are no gaps and that we're not leaving anybody behind.
Thank you for that. I'll hand it off to President Sheppard-Buote.