For us in the city of London, although there are other municipalities looking at changing this, if you're in need of assistance for housing, social assistance, perhaps child care support, and food security programs, you probably have to open seven doors. I only listed three things, but you probably have to open seven doors. The reality is that as communities, we need to start looking at how we integrate that, how we put the client first, the individual first, the family first, and talk about what that means for that individual and the process that person goes through.
We talk about systems integration, putting our housing with our social assistance. Housing first is a premise we think about, so if we deal with housing first, then we can deal with the social and other child care pieces after the fact. We have many community stakeholders that are involved in supporting people outside the system, whether it's faith-based organizations or local not-for-profits. It would be helpful to have that system work in a way that people aren't going from one food bank to another food bank to another community meal.
It's around that systems piece. The system is excellent. I'm not suggesting that it's not good. It is coordinated in many ways, but people within systems who live in poverty are probably the best coordinators we have. They know exactly where to go to access the services they need. We need to start doing that too.