Province funds shelter while snubbing service group
The provincial government has announced plans for a shelter in Delta for women fleeing domestic violence, just a few months after refusing funding for a similar proposal from a local service group.
The government has bought a property that will become Delta’s first transition house by April, providing temporary housing for eight women and their children at a time, Delta North Liberal MLA Scott Hamilton announced.
“Projects like this are essential in providing support to vulnerable women and their children,” Hamilton said in a release.
The government is investing approximately $1.8 million toward buying and renovating the house, and has put out a call to experienced non-profits for proposals to operate it.
Tsawwassen’s Kathleen Jamieson, vice-president of South Delta’s Canadian Federation of University Women, had worked for a year on just such a proposal, securing a donated house from the municipality, lining up $122,000 in federal funding for renovations, and finding a non-profit to run the facility.
But last November, Housing Minister Rich Coleman turned down the University Women’s request for $500,000 in annual operating funds.
“It’s shabby treatment of the people who were working for a whole year to make this happen,” said Jamieson, who got an emailed invitation to Friday’s noon-hour announcement that morning. “We did a lot of research to establish the need, got all kinds of letters of support.”
Coleman said at the time that the group’s proposal came in the middle of a fiscal year, when B.C. Housing’s operating dollars were already committed.
Jamieson said her group had been meeting with B.C. Housing for months before being told there was no money for the project. She said they met with Coleman that November at Hamilton’s office, and she said the minister was angry that Jamieson’s group had gone to the media and the opposition after being turned down. Their shelter would have been open by now, Jamieson said.
Friday’s release said that last year, more than 12,300 women and children were assisted by provincially-funded transition houses, second-stage housing and safe homes.
This year, the release said, the province is spending approximately $34.6 million to support more than 830 spaces in transition and safe houses as well as second-stage housing throughout B.C.