I'm Michael Poworoznyk, an operations director at Saint Leonard's Society of Nova Scotia. Saint Leonard's Society of Nova Scotia has recently merged with Metro Turning Point Centre. Metro Turning Point Centre is one of our facilities at Saint Leonard's now. It is Atlantic Canada's largest emergency men's shelter, with 75 beds providing emergency shelter to men over 16. We have Barry House as well, which is a women's shelter with 20 beds, and we have a men's halfway house with 21 beds and a women's halfway house with 8 beds. So we have a diverse range of services that provide help to people to assist them from crisis back to community. We see people arriving at our doors in various states of crisis.
I think I would echo a lot of things that have been said to you across the country, but housing is probably one of our number one concerns. Our effort in our organization is to navigate people to safe affordable housing—housing that is in community and helps them integrate into community. So there are a number of features to that type of housing. It needs to be safe and affordable. We can find unsafe affordable housing in rooming houses and so on that are substandard. We're even hearing that landlords are getting out of that business because they can't make enough money to update their buildings and so on. We can find safe unaffordable housing, where many of us would live.
But the real feature we look at is not to have extensive social housing being built all in one place, because those activities of the seventies and so on really created neighbourhoods that had a single-income feature or a homogeneous population in terms of their poverty status. That ghettoization is really problematic. So we would advocate for supported housing models that have been pioneered in many places. Many of you are familiar with Ottawa; there's a great scattered housing program there. Hostels-to-homes programs exist throughout the country. We would look forward to seeing federal support for those.
When we look at that kind of thing, that kind of housing definitely needs infrastructure. We definitely need to build some. I think that's a good place to start. That has been done by HPS, for example, over the last little while and SCPI before that.
But where the real crux of the matter comes is in providing supports. Those supports need a funding source. That investment needs to be ongoing and sustainable. The idea that organizations apply for government funding as a pilot, or as an initial investment, and hope to build.... We're always challenged by funders to build sustainability. I think it's time for the decision-makers and the policy-makers to start working out how we create a core funding option for some of these things, much like the health care system or the justice system. We consider the proactive investment as just that: a proactive investment that delivers returns. There are research papers galore that really emphasize that a proactive investment socially does produce returns in justice and health. So we need to see that.
The other thing I would say is that at Saint Leonard's we have looked at options of how to partner. Of course, as Metro Turning Point and Saint Leonard's began that discussion, we were very open about taking risks and doing that. I would urge and challenge our policy-makers to reward partnership, to figure out how to reward partnership instead of seeing partnership as an opportunity for gaining efficiencies, which typically equals saving money. Instead, be able to offer agencies that are willing to develop a full partnership, which share staff or facilities or budget in some way, an opportunity to have a bit of financial plus given into their budget. That way, they can, one, begin to cover the actual cost of the partnership and, two, begin to invest in studying that partnership.
Some agencies aren't as adept as others at writing those things into their budgets. But it's important to reward those partnerships and see that happening and to see what real partnership is. It's more than referral—saying if we can't serve a client and agency X can, we're going to send that client there. Well that's great collaboration. It develops from referral, where we might start to see staff understanding their niches and beginning to function in them. But real partnership goes from the front door to the finance office. We successfully developed that with Metro Turning Point and Saint Leonard's. That led us into a merger, and that will produce a return on investment of efficiency over time, I'm sure, but initially there are some costs.
Then the final thing I would say to challenge our policy-makers is that we are in an economic downturn and requiring stimulus. I think the economic downturn has produced a bit of a revolution in understanding that life is not about defining “more” and how to get it; instead, people are starting to be challenged to define “enough” and how to give more away. I would urge our policy-makers to support that philanthropic revolution and to up the tax credit for donors who are donating to our organizations.
I'm very happy, when I donate to political parties, that I get 75% as a return. However, when I donate to my favourite charities, it's a substantially lower tax credit. I think there is something to be said. That is a financial piece that isn't necessarily widespread, but it could be a way to inspire more of that involvement. As well, when people put investment from their wallet, they often put more investment from their time and energy, and they get to know the issues. I really believe that the more people know how to help, the more they will help, and we will create a better community. As people get involved, as people we serve get into scattered housing and their housing is among other people in our community with differing backgrounds, the primary feature of relationships then is not their addiction, their mental health status, or their poverty; it becomes two people in a laundry room doing laundry together in an apartment. Landscaper Bob says to formerly homeless Bill, who just got an apartment, “My place is hiring, man. You look like you could do something. If you want to get involved, I know I can get you in.”
With those networking opportunities, people start to build community. That's really what we're looking at. That can make a substantial impact for a relatively low cost.