Women’s shelters filling up, report finds

Crisis calls to women’s shelters in Alberta have jumped 10 per cent since 2015-16 while the number of women, children and seniors sheltered last year is up on the previous 12 months, a new report released Tuesday says.

The report, produced by the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters, says that “the rising demand for services has taken many shelters beyond full capacity” and that “women using shelter services are facing the highest level of danger in seven years.”

“Any rise in the numbers of women facing severe or extreme danger of being murdered by their intimate partner is extremely worrying,” executive director of Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters Jan Reimer said in a statement.

“We urgently need to address this issue as a society through more effective gun control as well as ensuring shelters have the resources to support women through the provision of accommodation, safety planning and community outreach.

“Shelters have faced an increase in crisis calls and have reached maximum caseload capacity in the delivery of outreach supports.”

In 2011-12 around 54 per cent of women faced severe or extreme danger, but in 2017-18 that number climbed to close to 65 per cent.

The number of people turned away because of a lack of capacity in 2017-18 rose to 16,722 from the previous year’s 14,497. In 2015-16 that number was 16,532.

The danger assessment measures the risk of a woman being murdered by her intimate partner.

The move into severe and extreme danger categories indicates that, among other factors, more women are being threatened with a gun or subjected to strangulation, the report said.

The number of crisis calls to shelters climbed from 52,562 in 2015-16 to 58,117 in 2017-18.

Close to 10,400 women, children and seniors found accommodation in shelters in 2017-18, which is up from 10,030 in 2016-17, but down from 10,567 in 2015-16.

“We know that effective, early interventions to support trauma- tized children can make an impact in supporting those children to develop healthy brains and engage in healthy relationships as they grow older,” Reimer said.

“But if we want to prevent this ongoing crisis in violence and abuse from drowning the next generation we need to increase our investment significantly, knowing that it will pay off in the long term.”