Citizenship and Immigration committee  We're constantly turning people away, with an arrival population of about 2,300 the last two years consistently in Vancouver. Our organizations together, as I mentioned, are maybe in the neighbourhood of 150, so it's a small percentage. As we're looking at rolling out this kind o

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct, and there are possibilities with private investors, and a significant large foundation has expressed some interest.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. We would be happy for whichever pot of money is available and could help set up such a centre and help us with, not just the centre, but the beginning of a long-range plan. We think we should have something in the neighbourhood of five years to really prove that this

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you so much.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was just going to say that we can submit the housing report and then our dream of the reception centre to show the wraparound and beginning stages of a more permanent plan for housing.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Definitely, housing is the first and foremost. There's very little settlement that can be adequately done without having a place to live, and so that's the first driving factor. Our organization, along with providing housing—we operate refugee houses where folks come to stay for

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We're reasonably small organizations, and we have only private funding, so we don't have a lot of capacity to help in every area. With some of these areas, such as foreign credentials, we would help them make the connection in the community. BCIT, a local institution, helps peopl

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In terms of how many folks our organizations help, is that the second part of what you were asking?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We probably work with, between our two organizations, maybe somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150 refugee claimants per year in being able to provide this complete wraparound service.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Secondly, they state that they “will be requesting Journey Home Community to approach and garner partner assistance from municipalities, the Federal Government and other sources to create as much equity as possible for this housing project.” Additional parties intere

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, definitely. Both Loren's organization and mine focus exclusively on newly arriving refugee claimants. Any GARs or PSRs who come to us, we refer on to other organizations that have funding to help them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Do you want to respond to that one, Loren?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you so much. Honourable Chair, vice-chair, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today and for the work you are doing on behalf of newcomers to our country. My colleague and I both work for refugee claimant serving organizations in met