The Executive Director of Choices for Youth says it’s been a rough couple of days as they grapple with a funding shortfall.

Choices is laying off staff and cutting programs after a funding arrangement with the federal government failed to come to fruition.

Jen Crowe says they operate on a federal budget of $4.5 million a year, but were notified in late June that they were receiving $4 million in total over a four-year period when they were seeking $20 million.

That’s a pretty significant shortfall, says Crowe.

“For us to maintain status quo, we need $4 million a year, that would be $16 million over four years. So we’re pretty short.”

That means layoffs and cuts.

She says by the time the news came down in June they already had a quarterly spend of $1 million. “Unfortunately, we have no choice but to make some significant operational changes and that impacts 16 full-time employees,” almost all of whom are with their Education, Employment and Social Enterprise Team who actively work to support some 100 “highly vulnerable” young people secure long-term jobs.

Crowe told reporters today that it appears to be as a result of demand for the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Funding program across the country.

“The official line that we received from the federal government is that they received over 100,000 applicants to the…program. Compared to other years, we weren’t given that level of detail, we do understand that there are other agencies across the country who received less.”