17 Mar 2011 ... EMC News - After $200000 is raised in the Perth area, ... In the first stage of setting up homeless shelters, youth will be able to access...

What a sad story, that there is not a refuge, a place in S.E. Ontario for troubled youth.

Red Cross puts up the homeless due to fires for 3 days. Our youth do not seem to have that same option. It is not surprising that rural eastern Ontario's issues are turning into big city issues: poverty, abuse, homelessness, and small towns are increasingly being called to help those in distress, without the tax base to support it.

I am very surprised that CAS does not get involved, and help set these kids up in apartments.

FYCSM.ca (Muskoka's CAS- I sat on the board), worked with kids too old for foster care, and too young to do this on their own.

They provided a few nights stay in an emergency motel, and then a Worker gets them on track, providing funding to get them set up in an apartment, with donated furniture. We even had a bursary for support for certificate and college courses, including course fees and materials.

This is how society ought to look after those who fall through the cracks. In the small town of Perth there are about a dozen young people on the streets. We have kids eating at a local church shelter, with the food preparation being supported by church groups. They are providing clothes and other services for these kids. Services lacking in the system. Kids are moving, sleeping on couches day-to-day until they are no longer welcome.

I cannot imagine how small communities are going to raise the funds for this, as well as the proposed Dignity House Hospice, for example. These are services our young and our old deserve. It intrudes upon the good health and the human rights and dignity our residents, healthy or ill, young or old, deserve. Our conservative politicians demand lower taxes, but without increased services our residents are going to continue to suffer.

UPDATE: 2017