I want to add two quick points. I spoke at the social audit that we had in Hamilton in February. I am also one of the storytellers. That is one of the best experiences I've had, with people genuinely listening and wanting to know what it's like to live in poverty. One of the best recommendations I could give for anyone to get even a taste of what poverty is like is to go with someone to a food bank. Help them out with the trip. You'll be there half the day. There's a lot of waiting there.
The other thing I want to touch on is housing. I live in social housing, CityHousing Hamilton. It took me three months to get one repair done, and that was just to get a plumber to come out to find out why my sink was backing up. It took two trips to the head of maintenance to say, “Why isn't this resolved?” I had to make an agreement with them that if the head of maintenance agreed to send a plumber out, I would have to talk to one of the other maintenance people about getting repairs done, which to me means they're kind of sick of seeing my face and hearing me stand up for my rights as a tenant.
I'm going to be straight up. I know it's social housing, but legally, as a tenant, I have a right to safe housing, housing in which I don't have to wear a face mask to walk down my hallway because it reeks and I don't want to know what's in the air there. I have that right, and if it comes down to it, I have no issues taking CityHousing to the landlord and tenant board.
Housing is another key point when you're working with vulnerable people. I used to be in the HOMES program, which Alan Whittle mentioned today. The main reason I left that program was that my superintendent was harassing me. For over two and half years there was non-stop harassment. I couldn't get Good Shepherd to do anything—no offence—because the relationship, and he spoke about this, with the property managers has to be maintained. If you lose that relationship, you're losing affordable housing, not just for that one tenant but for the other tenants who depend on that.