Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
My name is Aline Nizigama, and I am indeed the national CEO of YWCA Canada.
Across the country, YWCAs operate 34 shelters and more than 2,800 units of affordable and supportive housing, with more than 2,000 additional units planned or in construction in 18 communities throughout the country over the next three years.
Across housing, child care, youth employment and other community programs, the YWCA movement employs more than 6,500 staff and serves more than 636,000 people annually.
For more than 150 years, YWCAs have responded to gender-based violence, homelessness, poverty and systemic inequities. Today, those pressures are converging, and survivors are facing a system that is over capacity and increasingly difficult to navigate.
The evidence is clear: A recent report from Women's Shelters Canada found that emergency shelters and transition houses have an average of 17.5 funded beds but are operating 21 beds on average. That's about 20% over their funded capacity. Second-stage shelters have an average of 8.5 funded units but operate 10.5 units on average, which is about 24% above funded capacity. Meanwhile, 64% of emergency shelters and transition houses operate beyond funded capacity more than once a month. Because affordable housing is out of reach for many, 80% of emergency shelters and 65% of second-stage shelters are extending stays beyond their usual limits.
This is not just a shelter capacity issue; it is a service coordination issue as well. When survivors cannot move quickly from emergency shelters to second-stage housing or permanent affordable housing with access to income, child care, mental health care, legal assistance and other stabilization programs, the whole system backs up. The result is longer stays, longer wait-lists, more turnaways and fewer stable, safe options for survivors. We see this across the YWCA movement, and we know that the coordination work often starts before people arrive at our doors.
Since 2022, our national emergency survivor support fund has supported more than 1,400 survivors and their children with things like moving costs, transportation, rent, utilities and housing stabilization, and 90% of participants in this program said this support was the primary reason they were able to leave violent situations and start a new life.
We cannot keep up with the demand. A recent internal survey shows an average stay of 19 months in transitional housing, with occupancy averaging above 95% at all times. More than 60% of YWCAs maintain a wait-list for housing units, and close to 9,000 women and their families are currently waiting for housing and support services in our system. These pressures fall the hardest on indigenous women, Black and racialized women, newcomer women, women with disabilities and women in rural, northern and remote communities. At the same time, more than half the organizations report a chronic shortfall in core operational funding, alongside staff burnout and turnover.
The question is really about funding shelters as essential community infrastructure. Renewing the national action plan to end gender-based violence should include plans for sustained and flexible operational funding so that shelters and transitional housing providers can maintain appropriate staffing, programming, building operations and wraparound supports. We need capital funding to expand and preserve safe, affordable and supportive permanent housing so that survivors can move through a real continuum of care instead of getting stuck in emergency spaces that were never meant to function as long-term solutions.
If we are serious about responding adequately to gender-based violence, then our policy and funding decisions must match the reality that survivors and frontline workers face every day.
Thank you for your time.