Canada’s oldest women’s shelter marks five decades
Inasmuch House has offered its services in Hamilton since 1965
Canada’s oldest women’s shelter is marking 50 years in Hamilton by celebrating the courage of women who have fled violence.
Mission Services’ Inasmuch House has been a haven for women and their children in Hamilton since 1965.
Back then, it was called the Emma Bearinger Memorial Shelter and it had space for five women and two children. Two years later, it was renamed Inasmuch House and moved to York Boulevard. In 1973, it relocated to Emerald Street South before going to its current location in 1999.
Now it offers 37 beds, plus three more for overflow, along with transitional support, programs and advocacy. Like most shelters, it’s usually running at capacity.
It’s more than just the shelter’s physical space that has changed throughout the years, said Inasmuch House executive director Linsey MacPhee.
In the early days, the shelters were “grassroots,” but now they’re “more institutionalized, more professionalized,” she said. With that professionalism comes much better coordination among different shelters and social services in Hamilton.
But there are new challenges, too. It used to be that the average stay in a shelter was six weeks, but now there are women who stay months, even up to a year, MacPhee said. This is largely because of a lack of affordable housing and long wait lists for rent-geared-to-income housing.
Then there is technology, which on one hand can make access to services easier, she said. But it’s also another aspect of a woman’s life to control and another way to track her down.
A fundraising dinner Thursday night will mark “50 years of courage” by featuring the stories of women who have survived.
Stories like Vida’s, whose husband controlled nearly every aspect of her life and who was physically abusive. Her “turning point” was seeing the impact on her children, including her son, who started covering his ears when he heard fighting.
Seeing her children afraid, she came to Inasmuch House. Today, Vida lives in a new community, her children are happy and she’s planning to go back to school.
MacPhee said there’s a power in hearing women share their own
stories of survival.
“I think that because of the nature of violence against women in the early days, survivors are not safe, they can’t speak out, can’t reveal where they are,” she said. “When women come to a place in their journey where they can speak out, it’s powerful.”
It’s also a lot more difficult to dismiss the problem of violence against women when you’re hearing personal stories. Violence against women is about oppression, and part of that oppression is silence.
“Speaking out challenges it and unpacks it,” MacPhee said.
Speaking out challenges it and unpacks it. LINSEY MACPHEE INASMUCH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR