Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would first like to thank the committee for allowing me this opportunity to speak today.
My name is Linda Lafantaisie Renaud. I am the executive director of the Horizon Women's Centre, or the Centre Horizon pour femmes, in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario. Ours is the only fully bilingual shelter in our region that offers francophone services 24 hours a day. Our services include a 10-bed emergency shelter, outreach and a transitional housing program. We are very unique in the fact that we offer in-house, trauma-based therapy in both official languages to women in our community who are survivors of partner violence.
I have worked at this agency for 34 years, and I have seen first-hand the detrimental effects that abuse has on women and their children. However, I have also seen many women and their children be able to live the life they truly deserve. Our work in violence against women's agencies can be very difficult, dangerous and discouraging, but it can also be the most rewarding at the same time.
Most women are now struggling to find affordable housing, and have been since COVID. They now face living a lot longer in shelters and long waiting times for social housing, even when they are approved for abuse priority by the housing authority. In our district, women have abuse priority. They now have a waiting time of well over one to two years. This contradicts the reason for instilling this abuse priority in the first place. The reality is that women and children are now finding accommodations that are not the safest but are the most affordable for them, and/or they are now returning to their partners.
I have noticed through my experience that more often than not, some women do not realize the danger they are in. I believe we need more public awareness campaigns on coercive abuse so that women can escape these types of abusers earlier and so that women can see the warning signs. Most of the time, the abuse escalates from emotional to physical abuse and even threatening or killing their partner, as well as their children, when the abuser realizes she is leaving.
Women often arrive at our shelter truly broken. Many women have a hard time expressing—