Finance committee  Covenant House, absolutely. We've been at different meetings and different strategy meetings before, but we usually specifically work to advocate for girls only housing. They are one of many youth organizations. We would like to see more organizations that work specifically with

Finance committee  Thank you. I'll make it short. We did. We actually completed the housing strategy that resulted in these recommendations, and the money for that came from Status of Women Canada. Then we applied for funding for phase two of the project in order to advocate. As the representativ

Finance committee  As you've said, I think for a lot of people, when they actually hear about homelessness and youth homelessness, especially homelessness of girls, there maybe isn't as much of a resistance to housing like that, not as there would be for different kinds of housing. So it really dep

Finance committee  We absolutely have, but I should explain that we do all kinds of work. We do a lot of work with young women, for example, in youth custody and in advocating for girls who are in youth prisons. Actually, the progress that we've made has been around the treatment of girls and the p

Finance committee  They are both very good questions. Maybe I'll begin with the second question because it's on my mind. The idea is, in a way, both, because there is specific housing that is needed for girls only. That is especially when girls are first escaping, either escaping violence or when

Finance committee  I'm not sure I understand.

Finance committee  Well, I'm think of having units in social housing that already exist that would be designated for girls. As you've said, there are units that are designated for people with disabilities in certain buildings that have social housing. Similarly, we would like to have units that are

Finance committee  No. We're saying that similar to the transition house that you see for violence against women, we need a similar response to violence against girls. We need to stop looking at youth homelessness as just somehow youth end up kicked out on the street; we need to look at the gender

Finance committee  It would be partly from federal housing. The homelessness partnering strategy is coming up. It's finishing in March. The federal government has said there will be continual funding for some housing and programs after that. However, after March we would like to see specific money

Finance committee  Yes, possibly; it would be for organizations like ours that are, as you were saying, across the country.

Finance committee  Yes. I believe the youth organizations that are working around youth homelessness would actually apply for money to make specific programs for homeless girls.

Finance committee  There are many women who work in adult women's transition houses who are excellent at that kind of work. I don't think there would be a problem finding women who would be able to staff houses like that. If the federal government actually--

Finance committee  There are organizations that work with adult women that have adult transition houses, and then there are separate organizations that work with youth. There are separate pockets of money sometimes under youth homelessness so-called programs, but that money often goes to programs t

Finance committee  Thank you. My name is Asia Czapska. I'm the housing coordinator at Justice for Girls. Justice for Girls is a B.C.-based organization. We advocate for homeless and low-income girls and have done so for over eleven years now. We recently completed a federally funded housing stra