Two consistent themes emerged from our consultations, and I think the first was that we really can't hope to address demand in shelter beds if we don't first start to have a bit of a conversation about prevention and long-term solutions. That rang through loud and clear.
I would say the second piece was that affordable supportive housing, ideally in community, is probably a very important part of that solution.
What we heard over and over again is that preventing family violence is a powerful upstream mechanism. It's a way of decreasing the demand, but it is a longer-term solution. I have to say, as Martina said, we are not experts on this topic. There are other folks with deeper expertise who can talk to you about prevention. What we can tell you is that we absolutely believe we need to focus on reducing demand, because the number of women seeking help is just heartbreaking and it really demands our action.
In Calgary, which is a city of about 1.2 million, more than 800 women and children are turned away from secondary shelters every year due to lack of space. Across our province, that number climbs to 22,000, and that's according to statistics from the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters. That number, 22,000, is more than double the women accommodated, so it demands our action.
Worrying as well is that we know that these numbers are too low. As many of you on the panel will understand, we know that women's homelessness tends to be hidden. We know that women will often resort to couch surfing, to staying with an abusive partner and to trading sex for shelter in order to remain off the streets and to keep their children housed.
How do we address the lack of space? I think in the long term we do it by reducing the demand by addressing family violence. In the much nearer term, we believe we can free up shelter beds by investing in affordable housing with social supports, and I'll turn back to Martina to elaborate on that.