There's no question that social infrastructure is essential to the health and well-being of a community. We heard over and over, everywhere we went, that access to services was very difficult for people living in poverty. Everybody expressed it in a different way, but the idea of a community hub, a place located in their neighbourhood where people could go to access services....
We believe schools are a natural place. We want to use the infrastructure we already have because they're everywhere. They're located in every community and they're underused. So after school, in the summer.... We believe schools have a very important role to play, partly because they're already there, but also because for a lot of families growing up in poverty their sense of what a school is isn't necessarily positive. There's a reluctance to be part of the school community. When it's time for their kids to go to school, the kids pick up on the fact that school might not be a friendly place. The more we can bring community into schools, the better off we think kids will do in school.
Schools are part of the solution, but of course we need more social infrastructure. Schools can't do it all, but we think schools are important.