Women’s shelter restricting day access to clients

Encourages move into permanent housing

KITCHENER — The female emergency shelter in Kitchener is closing its doors to residents during the day to get women out in the community searching for housing.

Starting this week, the YWCA Kitchener-Waterloo emergency shelter on Frederick Street will not allow women to stay from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Executive director Elizabeth Clarke said the shelter is moving to a housing-first model, which means clients must be searching for permanent housing during daytime hours.

Clarke said there are a handful of residents who treat the shelter as their permanent home.

“The shelter isn’t a place to live. You can’t expect to live here,” she said.

“Some women stay back in the shelter, sleeping all day, partying all night and turning down housing when it becomes available.”

Restrictions to daytime access

to clients at the shelter have been in the plans for a long time, Clarke said.

Other shelters — Bridges in Cambridge and the men’s shelter on Charles Street — restrict clients from being at the shelter during the day.

There are exemptions and some can stay at the shelter during the day.

They include clients who are ill or work an overnight job and families with small children who are not in school or daycare.

Families with school-aged children will be able to return once school is done each day.

Women and their families will be able to stay at the shelter on weekends and public holidays.

The new rules should be fully implemented by April 1.

Clarke said the shelter will assist women with their search for permanent housing.

At the shelter, there is a “housing hub” where women have access to computers, information about housing locally such as Lutherwood and a housing support worker who can point them in the right direction and go with them to appointments.

“We are not saying you are out on the street and you’re on your own,” she said.

Clarke said the shelter decided to be “proactive” with clients who treat the shelter as a permanent home.

Opportunities for permanent housing were being declined and this was “happening often,” she said.

“We are the last shelter to do this,” Clarke said. “Most clients are fine with this.”

Clarke said current staff — about 30 — will focus their work from daytime hours to later afternoon and evening hours.

The shelter has 60 beds and on average there were 57 women and children living at the shelter in 2016, Clarke said.

Locally, the waiting lists for housing are long. In 2015-16, the waiting list for community housing in the region is 3,004 families, while supportive housing wait lists number at 1,588.