[Technical Difficulty—Editor] representing the YMCA.
The YMCA is one of the primary federally funded settlement organizations in our region. We also pilot one of the CLARS, one of the language assessment and referral services, on behalf of the federal government in our region.
Personally I'm on the immigration partnership council. I also want to note that the YMCA has been working with newcomer youth for over a decade in our region to help with the belonging and the settlement process. Although it's not funded by the government, we knew it was a need and see it as a growing need.
I have five quick points.
I want to start off by saying that the settlement agencies and the immigration partnership council were very effective in the fall in indicating the needs and issues that we might be facing as a community, and in doing so they enabled the process that Tara so ably talked about to happen. It was knowing first-hand that we were going to be receiving probably.... We have more than 1,200 Syrian refugees, which is significant for our region.
Second, our community has been very generous, not just on the privately sponsored refugees or PSR side but in coming forward with donations. We were able, with the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation and the Cambridge and North Dumfries Community Foundation, to work with the foundations on receiving donations. They are able to issue the receipts, but then they transfer the money over to the region so that a task force of the immigration partnership council is able to assess the needs of individuals and agencies and make adequate responses where there are unintended and emerging gaps in the services. That's been a very effective tactic.
I think another reason you've had some good early-on success with our Syrian refugees is that they were provided permanent residency, were able to receive refugee assistance, had an early health approval process, and received a social insurance number. This is so important for our Syrian refugees, to speed up the process and allow people to put their efforts and energies into getting settled. I would indicate that this should be a consideration for all of our refugees, not just our Syrian refugees.
My fourth point relates to investment. As indicated in the previous presentation, there has been a reduction in investment in settlement services over the last few years in our region. Our immigration has actually increased during that time. Now we have a situation whereby we've actually tripled the number of refugees we take in over a year and have done so in two months.
We're getting many stresses not just on the settlement sector but on all of the other required elements, such as education, mental health, health, and housing, in order to help a large group of people become settled. I would ask for consideration to be given to investment in some of the settlement requirements as well as in the broader community sectors that will require support.
Last, I would say that it's about going forward. Because of some good early-on planning and some good supports initially from the federal government, I think we've been able to assimilate, at the first stage, a large group of Syrian refugees. But as we go forward, we know that the issues and needs of our refugees are not going to be satisfied or achieved within the first year and that responsibility for resources and support will be required. I would ask for some continued investments—wise investments—using our community partnership planning model to understand what our needs are.
Those are my comments.
Thank you.