I've seen a lot of that at my place of employment too. We will hire people on temporary work contracts. Twelve weeks is usually the maximum, which doesn't do us a whole lot of good, because they get trained and off they go. I've had two adults come back and say that I've given such awesome references that it actually landed them a job.
Another thing I want to let you folks representing the federal government know about is the summer student program. For the entire 17 years we've had this placement, I've always chosen to hire somebody from an economically depressed background. It tends to be the oldest child in a single-parent family. There are five other kids. My current summer student is returning for her fifth year. Let me tell you what $2,000 a year has done for her family and for getting this kid through school. She is now going into human services, and it's probably in direct correlation with her employment with us during the summer.
I understand that program is going.... We were one of the groups that were told one year that we couldn't have any. I'm going to go back and check on it. I'd like to see priority given to organizations such as ours that choose students from families in which there is only one income. As far as an indicator of poverty, if you're anywhere below $20,000, you're there. If there's only one income for your household, even if it's above $20,000, you're there. Those are the families I see. Of the 200 families and 300 kids that come in every month, we're seeing families with only one income today. It is very hard to manage.