I'll read my remarks in English, but I can answer questions in French.
Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable committee members. Thank you for the invitation.
My name is Anuradha Dugal. I'm executive director of Women's Shelters Canada, Hébergement femmes Canada, bringing together 16 provincial and territorial shelter organizations and supporting over 600 shelters across the country for women, children and gender-diverse people fleeing violence.
We will submit a written brief, including our latest national report published in March, authored by Dr. Robyn Hoogendam and Chika Maduakolam, “Sheltering Under Pressure: Frontline Realities of Canada's Violence Against Women Shelters and Transition Houses”, which forms the basis of my remarks.
The main takeaway and the focus of my message is that VAW shelters across Canada are doing more than ever with less and less. Without sustained funding, infrastructure investment and housing solutions, shelters' capacity to support survivors is being stretched.
Rising violence and the housing crisis keep survivors trapped without safe options. In a 2024 report, WSC found that 97% of shelter survey respondents indicated that over the preceding 12 months, it had become harder and harder to support survivors in finding housing. This housing crisis has led to increasingly high turnaway rates. The lack of affordable housing means that shelters help fewer women because of the bottleneck effect of women staying longer in shelter because there's nowhere to go. The high turnaway rates increase the risk of femicide and other long-term harms of returning to an abuser because there is nowhere else to go.
When the system is working with sufficient supports and capacity, shelters and transition houses function as they were meant to, as pathways to safe and affordable housing. In the absence of these options, both emergency and second-stage shelters are extending their length-of-stay policies.
WSC is also running a program that supports new shelter builds as unmet demand leads shelters to consider building new spaces for survivors to live and heal in safety.
There are clear links between housing insecurity, poverty and gender-based violence. Those in shelter are only a small portion of survivors in need. Those who can go elsewhere, such as to family or friends, generally do. Shelters are for those who cannot go anywhere else or who are at increased risk of post-separation violence. Women don't need to move into a shelter to access supports: They can use outreach services for all kinds of services like safety planning, counselling, service navigation and other community organizations.
Poverty and income insecurity are major factors for survivors in shelters. Violence is both a driver of poverty and housing insecurity and a result of being unhoused. Employment can be a protective factor for survivors, as it often offers independence, confidence and social support. Too often, violence follows survivors to work, and employers make the mistake of thinking the effects of violence are other kinds of performance and work issues. You can learn more about this on our website, referher.ca.
Finally, capacity and accessibility of women's shelters across Canada to support vulnerable women and those fleeing violence is at risk. Over half of the surveyed organizations in our newest publication report chronic shortfalls in core operational funding, reflecting stagnant or insufficient government and core funding streams that have not kept pace, especially with rising costs.
Shelters have limited capacity to offer dedicated supports, especially to meet intersectional needs of survivors. In particular, these are limited for Black survivors, as well as two-spirit, trans, gender-diverse, gender-fluid and intersex survivors and survivors with disabilities. Fifty-eight per cent of shelters offer targeted, culturally relevant programming, but these are often under-resourced and cannot fully meet the demand.
The shelter workforce is large, specialized and under intense strain. Turnover, burnout, low pay and the emotional toll of the work remain pervasive.
Our report highlights six recommendations, of which I will underline three today.
Shelters need sustained capital investment in infrastructure.
Survivors need access to affordable—