Oh dear, that's a tough one. That's a tough question. Certainly the points that you've made are very well taken.
In my experience, working at the front line and managing a very good team of social workers, I find that when we go for services, the services are not as readily available as we would like them to be for the clientele we are tasked with servicing. Housing is definitely an issue. Yes, properties are expensive in Yellowknife. A lot of our families cannot afford to rent apartments. Unfortunately, we have one landlord in town who owns a lot of the buildings, so if you're evicted by that property owner, it's often difficult to find housing in another unit.
Personally, and I'm speaking from my own experience, I would like to see the departments work more closely together. I find that housing, income support, and social services through our Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority need to work out a system where the services for the families we're here to assist are more readily available.
Right now, as a last resort, families are referred to child and family services because the family doesn't have any housing. We try very, very hard not to bring children into foster care because of the fact there isn't housing available. Very often, social services is the one that ends up paying rental arrears, so people will have a place to live. It doesn't make sense to me.
We need more people at the table to build and develop a solution that is going to maintain the families who require services. It puts a lot of stress on people. Unfortunately, the stress that parents are experiencing impacts children. As much as we don't want to apprehend children, there are occasions when we do.
We have a lot of positive things going for us, don't get me wrong, but there are still areas where we could improve. I think if we worked more cooperatively as departments, we would provide better service overall.