Good afternoon.
I am Ann Decter of the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today on closing gaps in shelters and transition houses serving women and children escaping violence. I’d like to acknowledge the Algonquin peoples as the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which we are gathered today.
With the support of donors and corporate partners, the Canadian Women’s Foundation has raised more than $80 million and funded over 1,500 programs for women and girls across the country since its founding in 1991. The foundation works to achieve systemic change and strengthen the women’s sector by bringing together service providers to share knowledge and solutions. We provide funds to over 450 shelters and transition houses and support innovative programs that address gaps in services.
A study of this nature needs to take into account the history of gendered violence in Canada, including the legacy of residential schools; and that black, indigenous, and racialized women, and women with disabilities are those most seriously affected by this violence. The foundation acknowledges our role as settlers and that through colonization, gendered violence and intergenerational trauma intersect in the lives of first nations, Métis and Inuit women who experience some of the highest levels of violence in our country.
The first gap the federal government can address directly and immediately is the funding gap for shelters on reserve, which receive up to 30% less than provincially funded shelters, as noted by the National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence. This creates a services gap that includes fewer beds, fewer staff, staff burnout and consequent turnover. We support the call of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters to fund aboriginal shelters at the same level as all other shelters in Canada. This apparent discrimination is not acceptable.
The foundation has supported innovative approaches like partnering with the Native Women’s Association of Canada on “You Are Not Alone: A Toolkit for Aboriginal Women Escaping Domestic Violence”. This workbook, available to all shelters in Canada, provides first nations, Métis and Inuit women with community safety planning resources. The tool kit includes a domestic violence resource guide of services available to indigenous women in every province and territory, and it is updated annually.
Another innovative approach was funding to a shelter to engage elders to provide a space appropriate for ceremony, spiritual guidance, and ongoing culturally safe work to make the shelter more welcoming and safer for women.
The Canada Revenue Agency's guidelines for public foundations cause a gap in our ability to fund more of these types of innovations in shelters serving first nations women. As a public foundation, we are restricted to providing grants to shelters with qualified donee status. There are very few shelters in first nation communities with this designation. We have been supporting the work of the aboriginal circle on philanthropy to change this, but without a resolution from CRA, this remains a barrier to our funding women’s shelters on first nations' territories.
There is a gap in funding for low-barrier shelter models that welcome women with diverse experiences, including women who have experienced trafficking, trans women and gender non-conforming, women with disabilities, and women coping with mental health concerns. These shelters have significant, evidence-based training and extensive experience in violence and trauma. With financial support they can extend their services, for example, to serve women who have been trafficked, rather than setting up a parallel system. Funding needs to reflect women with increasingly complex needs who require longer stays, as many have suggested here, with smaller staff-to-resident ratios and easier access to legal and immigration advice.
Gaps that bar women from shelters include lack of transportation to a distant shelter, insufficient accommodations for women with disabilities, and insufficient space. Bottlenecks occur and women are turned away when women in a shelter can’t find safe affordable housing in the community and leave the shelter. Access to long-term safe affordable housing, with supports where needed, is a major gap, as is second-stage housing, where women live in self-contained apartments with access to staff for a fixed time period. These can be an important step to stability for families and need to be followed by access to permanent, safe, affordable housing.
Women in shelters and transition houses have lost their housing to preserve their safety, and are homeless. Anova in London, Ontario is piloting a model to address this, in which women would retain their home post-violence. This is what applying a housing first lens could look like for women living with abuse.
Shelters do more than offer women safety, as you've heard. They provide consent education for teen healthy relationships in schools. They provide outreach to communities distant from the shelter. They provide liaison to schools for children in the shelter. They provide counselling, parenting advice and supports to children who witness violence.
A safe space is essential to survival, but access to programs for children, self-esteem, financial stability, housing support and legal support are critical to success post-shelter. As one woman described her shelter stay:
I had the impression that shelters were scary places but that changed once I began to meet other women and children who also faced abuse. My son adjusted and began to play with the other kids; I made strong friendships with some of the other moms. Since the shelter provided me my own room, and I no longer had to face daily arguments, I had the security and space I needed to think: What were we going to do? How would I support myself and my son?
Shelters and transition houses are one essential response to violence against women and girls, but only one. We would draw your attention to one more gap. We need a comprehensive national action plan on violence against women and girls as called for by Women's Shelters Canada.
Thank you for your time today.