For each band and where they come from? Most of them are long-term Yukoners. Some of them are transient. In the summer the demand for our service does go up, and a lot of that is a more transient population. Our core population of people we serve, anywhere from 50 to 70 people a night, are Yukoners who live here year round, many of whom are of aboriginal descent and have lived in the Yukon a long time.
The issues they are dealing with are complex. A number of them are dealing with substance use issues, addictions, as well as mental health issues. Many of our clients are infected with hepatitis C; some with HIV are co-infected as well. You may not know this, but the Yukon has the highest hepatitis C rates in all of Canada. We have twice the national average. Many of our clients are dealing with hepatitis C as well, often from passive injection drug use or behaviours that put them at risk for hepatitis C, such as unsafe tattooing practices and that sort of thing.
Our clients are struggling with a number of issues, including systemic racism, systemic poverty. Many of them are residential school survivors as well who are dealing with complex trauma in their past, so substance use or abuse is in their lives as well as mental health issues. They are really struggling on a number of fronts. The outreach van provides some basic counselling support services for them, some outreach nursing services. For many of our clients, the only health care they will access is the outreach nursing services from the outreach van. They will not go to the hospital for health care. They do not have a physician. For some of our clients, the only health care they get is from the outreach nurse who works on the van twice a week.