We're very pleased to have the opportunity to participate today in this study of shelters and transition houses serving women victims of violence. Quebec must cope with a critical shortage of available places, and the situation is particularly serious in Laval.
Today we want to briefly describe the situation in our region and propose some solutions.
In Laval, as in other areas, many women affected by violence are denied assistance as a result of the lack of available shelter space or resources adapted to their situation.
The situation is quite alarming in Laval. That's why we've documented shelter needs in the region, for the purpose of ensuring safe transitions for women.
Unsurprisingly, the study showed that the services provided fall far short of meeting all the needs. We'll come back to this matter later.
We also prepared a description of women in vulnerable situations, and the results were released in 2015. It was demonstrated that, in 98% of cases, the organizations in the region needed to refer the women receiving support to other resources in order to meet all their needs. In 57% of cases, the women were sent outside the region as a result of the lack of resources.
It should be noted that Laval has no resources for women who are experiencing multiple issues related to violence. If women aren't experiencing domestic violence, there's no crisis or transition shelter for them.
For example, Laval has a population of over 435,000 people, and the city has only nine community shelter resources for people in crisis or transition. Of these nine resources, only three are single-gender resources for women. These three single-gender resources are responsible for taking in and housing women victims of domestic violence and their children.
Only two of the other mixed-gender resources take in people who are homeless or who are experiencing multiple issues. These two resources provide seven emergency places, including two places for less than 24 hours. This gives you an idea of the shelter space available in Laval.