A warm space for women to rest in the winter
Carole Anne’s Place opens its doors at the YWCA Dec. 1 to offer respite when shelters full
In winter, the risks for women without safe and stable places to stay intensify.
Apart from the cold, they can find themselves increasingly in dangerous situations just to survive.
“We’re trying to mitigate that,” says Medora Uppal, the Hamilton YWCA’s director of operation
Uppal helps run Carole Anne’s Place, which provides women a place to stay overnight when shelters are full in winter.
It will open again Dec. 1 and remain so until March 31.
The pilot project run out of the YWCA receives women who have trouble staying in other shelters.
“The women we’re seeing come in are typically dealing with very complex issues of mental health and often with addictions,” Uppal said.
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Women kind withdrawal management services is a partner in the pilot. It provides on-site staff support.
Uppal describes Carole Anne’s Place, which launched in December 2016, as a “low-barrier” program.
“So women only disclose to us what they need and they feel comfortable disclosing to us.”
Because of this approach, information about clients has been limited. But last season, Uppal said, the pilot helped roughly 120 women.
Staff saw many clients they hadn’t seen before, either because they hadn’t accessed the shelter system or not for a long time.
“So we were seeing this increase and growing need that was beyond the scope of what was being turned away.”
Last December, staff at shelters in Hamilton had to turn away women an average of 19 times per night because there was no space. Shelters were at 109 per cent capacity.
“We continue to turn women away on hundreds of occasions a month,” Katherine Kalinowski, chief operating officer of Good Shepherd Centres Hamilton, said in a recent interview.
The December statistic is mentioned in a report by the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton that looks at women’s homelessness in the city.
Published in February, “How’s the weather ... Now?” emphasizes the importance of responding to women’s homelessness through a “gender lens.”
“In order to do more, it is necessary to recognize the experiences of women are very different than those of men, and therefore, so are the solutions.”
Women, for instance, are likely to have experienced violence or abuse on the track to homelessness.
In warmer months, men and women alike sleep outside, a notable phenomenon in Hamilton this past summer.
But come winter, women may be drawn closer to exploitative or abusive relationships as a matter of survival — a tendency social workers say contributes to “invisible homelessness.”
“It means they are exposed to violence and abuse that may be part of negotiating that ‘safe’ space to sleep,” Uppal said.
When Carole Anne’s Place opens for the night, women help lay out mattresses in the YWCA’s seniors’ centre gymnasium.
“At 10 o’clock, the women are exhausted from survival all day,” Uppal said. By 8 a.m., they’re out the door.
They can go to Willow’s Place, a daytime drop-in program for women operated by Mission Services at 196 Wentworth St. N. There, visitors can have a light breakfast, do laundry, take a shower and socialize.
Carole Anne’s Place receives funds from the Local Health Integration Network.
Out of the Cold, a charity, is another source.
Uppal estimated it costs roughly $200,000 to operate the pilot, but that doesn’t include expenses absorbed by partner agencies.
Carole Anne’s Place is still in a pilot phase, meaning its operation is determined on a year-to-year basis.
Uppal says the hope to create more low-barrier programs for women year-round.