I want to also point out that we have the Encourage Hub that is part of the Safe Centre of Peel, where we are co-located as individual partner agencies to support efforts around housing, mental health and addictions. They are all one-stop shops.
I think for us one of the challenges, to piggyback on what Raman was saying, is that often our clients have housing, but the landlord is also their employer. They're stuck in this, “If I quit my job, then I lose my housing. If I move, I lose my job.” We saw this so much during the pandemic, when folks were being underpaid, working under the table and really being debt bonded. Because they were international students and they had no way to earn during the pandemic for the next year, they would often do things that were most certainly illegal and exploitive. They can't tell their families that they've been giving their landlord and boss sexual favours, because the stigma associated around that when they return home would be just too great.
We are doing great things here in the region. I don't have the answer. Honestly, I don't know how to take care of the exorbitant tuition costs that international students have, but I know that it has to happen on a legislative level, because it's not enforceable if somebody says, “My landlord is taking advantage of me”. They'll just be told to move. That's the closet answer.
The one thing that we did find from our research and our work with service providers when we launched our tool kit was that we didn't have the answers. We went through three life scenarios at the symposium, and people could identify the issues quite easily. They could identify strategies, but there were very limited resources to support folks who were being labour trafficked.
I don't know if that answers your question. I hope it does.