In our community, the majority of the funding for Hiatus House, luckily, is through the federal government. The balance is provincial, not municipal. The municipality funds homeless shelters. That's part of what I believe the divide is. It's so poorly funded at the municipal level that you don't want to associate with it.
As to how we work collaboratively with the other agencies supporting us, they absolutely do. They provide referrals to us on an ongoing basis.
The sad fact is they also know we're running beyond capacity all the time, so they sit with us and try to figure where to send this woman tonight, a woman who's been severely assaulted. Police are involved. She's had to be turned away. This just happened to me not that long ago, working in the night. I had a woman with a four-month-old baby. I tried Sarnia, Chatham, Strathroy and London. How far away does she have to go to get a shelter bed?