Status of Women committee  Thank you. Lethbridge is located in southern Alberta. We are a city with a population of just under 100,000. We are neighbours to the largest reserve in Canada, and per capita have one of the highest populations of immigrants and new Canadians. The YWCA Lethbridge and District

Status of Women committee  I would love to just add that one of the things we see is that we're serving individual whose bodies are those of seniors. They need the supports of seniors because of the lifestyle they have been put through. One piece that is a huge gap is the medical treatment. It's about bei

Status of Women committee  It's about eliminating some of those steps. I realize it's about engagement from all those levels. As an example, a few years ago, the federal government announced $39 million going towards housing in Alberta. When it hit our doorstep, we had our programming cut in half. We think

Status of Women committee  Absolutely.

Status of Women committee  We screen as well. We partner up where we can with additional agencies, but our programming is designed around the individual. When we offer programming, it is about building the building blocks for that individual, and if that is assistance with a traumatic brain injury, that ca

Status of Women committee  A large part is funding, the need. You'll see 21days, 28 days. It does vary to some degree. The idea of the shelter is to provide that initial emergency support. Shelters are not just a band-aid. They're a very significant piece. They're about women and children being able to reg

Status of Women committee  That would be more of a defined second-stage shelter type of placement, as opposed to an emergency shelter. Again, it's how it is defined and what services are in the area.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. First, we need to teach individuals a bunch of different skills. When people have experienced some sort of trauma or come from a traumatic experience, they're living in a survival mode and they don't necessarily look at what's happening around them. It really is abo

Status of Women committee  Partnering is very crucial, especially when you come from a non-profit world. It is something that you have to use to survive. By all means, we partner with a number of agencies and organizations within Lethbridge to provide these services. As a YWCA, we offer multiple programs

Status of Women committee  Yes, it's crucial to have those stepping stones. One of the biggest things, which often gets overlooked when we think of transitional or second-stage housing, is the safety mechanisms that need to be put in place. In many cases, these women and children are being hunted, and bui

Status of Women committee  An ideal scenario would be money to build a building. We don't have the space on our site. We need investment in capital and investment in the operations to provide the support, along with the investment in security pieces. That would be built into the capital piece.

Status of Women committee  We often refer to it as our turnaway rates. When someone comes to us and we do not have that safe bed, we sit with them and we safety-plan with them. We look at other safe options. We also connect them with our outreach team. Our outreach team will continue to work with them from

Status of Women committee  I think, again, that's key. We need that investment from the federal government. Safety is a right. We all deserve to be safe, and the women and children's voices are not being heard. They're the ones who are being pushed under the table. We're hearing a lot about the opioid cr

Status of Women committee  Absolutely.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely, we need to invest in those. It's not just about their ethnic culture, but the culture they come with, whether from their family or wherever, and their attitudinal belief about where they stand as individuals in their pecking order. Again, it's really about meeting th