Thank you very much for that question.
Yes, I was talking about the challenges and issues around funding for shelters and transition houses as well as for community-based sexual assault centres. I would add to that the many other grassroots organizations and networks that are providing support to survivors of gender-based violence across the country.
Funding is one of those challenges we really need to address because we know that supporting survivors is becoming increasingly complex. There are real challenges in accessing supports in some of the other places we may think people would go to for help. We're seeing that people who are accessing supports through shelters, through sexual assault centres and through organizations like the type that Yasmin was speaking about today often have compounding challenges. They often have mental health challenges. They're looking for housing support. They're trying to access income support. Often people working in these organizations are facing the challenge of doing all of that individual counselling support as well as helping them navigate these really complicated systems.
We know that in many ways the work that is performed in these organizations requires really specialized training. It is often very difficult. They're working with people who have had very difficult, traumatic experiences, and they are often their first point of contact. We see, though, that this work is often thought of as just helping work or supporting work. It isn't necessarily given the same sort of recognition in terms of the type of complexity that's involved.
As we found in the study that we submitted to the committee, there's also a large network of volunteers who do this really complicated work. A lot of crisis support lines that operate across the country to provide crisis support to survivors of gender-based violence are staffed by volunteers.
We need funding that is long term, flexible and allows organizations to use funding in a way that works best for them.