EMERGENCY SHELTER FUNDING
Province, feds chip in $4.2 million
The federal and provincial governments came together Tuesday afternoon at the YWCA in Regina to announce more than $4.2 million in funding for emergency shelter initiatives in Saskatchewan.
Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen, CEO of YWCA Regina, was glad to receive $268,000 of that money for the organization’s Isabel Johnson Shelter, which helps women fleeing abusive situations, and the Kikinaw Women’s Residence.
She said it will help pay for general maintenance and repairs, allowing the organization to focus on its programming, particularly advocacy work around healthy masculinity and healthy relationships.
“The more work we can do to work and educate folks ahead of time means fewer women are entering into crisis, so our hope, and I think the hope of many shelters across the province, is that we don’t actually need shelters down the road,” she said.
Saskatchewan currently has the highest rate of intimate partner violence in Canada, at nearly twice the national average.
“Instead of investing in opening up more beds, there’s an investment and an understanding that the advocacy work is going to change the dial ahead of time.”
More women are approaching the YWCA than the organization can take in. Due to a lack of space, 631 women and 341 children were turned away from the Isabel Johnson Shelter and more than 1,200 women and 500 children were turned away from My Aunt’s Place last year.
Paul Merriman, Saskatchewan’s minister of social services and responsible for Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, helped make the announcement.
“This is a commitment from the provincial government, from the federal government and from the community to make sure that women and their families are safe,” he said.
“We want to make sure that the women are protected, but we also want to make sure that men in the community are understanding that this is not acceptable.”
This funding is being divided among 14 organizations in nine communities across the province, said Ralph Goodale, federal minister of public safety and emergency preparedness.
The money is being used to renovate 81 bedrooms, 25 units of second-stage rental housing and add four new units.
Goodale said the Government of Canada is currently working on a $40-billion, 10-year national housing strategy, with the goal of cutting chronic homelessness by 50 per cent.
“Our goal is to build, renew and repair Canada’s stock of affordable housing to meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens,” he said, noting that women were a priority with this.
“Women make up 80 per cent of police-reported intimate partner violence.
“We all need to work better together to end this and other forms of persistent gender-based violence in Canada.”
We want to make sure that the women are protected, but we also want to make sure that men ... are understanding that this is not acceptable.