Waiting list grows as sexual assault centre awaits promised funding
Unprecedented backlog of survivors needing support as province puts off funding decision
The demand for counselling services at Niagara Sexual Assault Centre has reached unprecedented numbers, with more than 200 people on the wait list, and staff don’t know when relief will come.
Last March, the centre — it serves all of Niagara through its 24-hour crisis line, as well as its downtown St. Catharines office and outreach sites in Niagara Falls, Port Colborne, Welland and Fort Erie — was promised about $92,000 by the former Liberal government, which would help to cut down some of its growing wait list. It was part of a promised 33 per cent bump in funding for rape crisis centres across the province. However, that promised funding was put on hold when Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative party was elected to form government.
Centres across the province were told they would be updated about the funding bump in September.
“September has come and gone and we’re still waiting to hear,” said Cheri Huys, volunteer coordinator with the centre.
The community, she said, is going through a very difficult time.
“There’s lots going on. There’s all the #MeToo stuff, there are some local cases going on here, too, and that really causes triggers for a lot of people,” she said, referencing high-profile local cases such as historic sexual assault allegations against businessman Jeff Cairns and a recent string of arrests related to a case in Port Colborne.
Huys said the organization has had numerous calls from women, and men, in Niagara who said they’ve had similar experiences, and while in some cases they may have sought help at the time, seeing it in the news and hearing about it in the community is triggering and makes things difficult again.
“As more and more cases, locally and nationally, come forward, individuals are directly impacted by that. We’ve seen our wait list grow exponentially,” she said. “Our wait list right now is much more than it was last year and more than the year before that. We’ve reached numbers we’ve never seen before for people waiting for services.”
Just a few years ago, if the centre’s list hit 50 people awaiting counselling, staff would go into panic mode. Now, there are more than 200 people facing a wait time of up to one year for services and Huys said without this promised funding, she doesn’t expect
things to change.
“We were very happy to hear about the ($92,000) funding because we thought we could hire another therapist, or possibly two therapists. That would definitely help with our huge wait list,” she said. “Now, we’re still waiting, none of us have any prediction about what this will look like for us. The region is in a crisis with this — we have a wait list that we’ve never seen before.”
The centre has an equivalent of two part-time and one full-time therapists to provide services at the downtown centre, as well as its outreach sites.
In the past, the outreach sites may have had a wait list of one, two or three people waiting. Those have grown, too, and now one site has 30 people waiting.
“We can’t keep up,” Huys said.
“We need more funding. We need the ability to hire more therapists so we can address people. When people call on the phone, they need help now.”
For people needing counselling, the options while they wait are limited. There is the 24-hour crisis line, but Huys is quick to point out that’s not counselling and it doesn’t help the survivors of sexual abuse and sexual violence do the trauma work they need to do.
“These people need therapy,” she said. The other option is private therapy, but that can be costly and is not feasible — financially — for everyone.
Two years ago, the average time spent on a wait list ranged from four to six months. Now, it’s 12 to 13 months.
“This funding would impact the wait list significantly. It’s difficult because we’re talking about, on average, about 30 requests a month we’re receiving
for services. That’s 30 individual people wanting or needing therapy,” Huys said.
On the wait list, approximately 25 per cent of the people waiting for counselling are in their 50s and 60s. It’s a figure that is staggering for St. Catharines MPP Jennie Stevens.
“It’s heartbreaking. Absolutely, heart-wrenching when you sit down and think about,” she said.
Stevens met with representatives from the Niagara Sexual Assault Centre and plans on bringing their concerns forward at Queen’s Park, she said.
Fellow NDP MPP Suze Morrison, who represents Toronto Centre, brought up the promised funding increase in October, reiterating the need for the increase promised by the Liberals.
Morrison spoke up in question period shortly after news broke that the new government would be disbanding an expert roundtable focused on ending violence
against women.
“Whether it’s a roundtable of experts or the promised funding, this is an important issue and it needs to be addressed,” said Stevens. “We need to do everything we can to end violence against women, to end sexual violence and to help those who have experienced it.”
Huys said the centre has also reached out to Niagara’s only PC MPP, Sam Oosterhoff, who represents Niagara West riding. They’d like to sit down to talk about the need for funding.
“This centre is one of its kind, the only one in Niagara that offers this kind of trauma therapy for free. The demand is great,” she said. “We provide very specialized trauma therapy for sexual abuse, incest and for sexual assault survivors as well. We need help.”
Calls to Oosterhoff’s office were not returned by press deadline.