Doing more with less

Two reports came out in early May that should have received a lot more attention than they did. The Standing Committee on the Status of Women released its latest study, Surviving Abuse and Building Resilience, on Canada’s systems of shelters and transition houses serving women and children fleeing violence. And Women’s Shelter Canada (WSC) published More Than a Bed, the first-ever survey of shelters developed by and for the violence against women (VAW) sector.

As the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls gets ready to release its final report on June 3^rd, these reports provide a timely reminder of the glaring gaps in the services available to women and children traumatized by violence and the need for meaningful action and sustained, long-term funding to end gender-based violence and care for survivors.

With the federal election around the corner, it’s fair to wonder: Is anybody listening?

For more than 40 years, women’s shelters have been working in communities across Canada offering temporary safety to women and children fleeing violence. Over this time, the number of shelters and transition houses—and the scope of their work—have grown to attempt to meet the needs of women at the most vulnerable point in their lives.

On any given night in Canada, 3,565 women and their 3,137 children sleep in shelters because it isn’t safe at home. And over 900 women and children are turned away because shelters are already full.¹ Hundreds more are assisted through outreach programs, groups, and services.²

The scale of the need is enormous. The World Health Organization estimates that one in four women in Canada will experience intimate partner violence or sexual violence in her lifetime.³

In 2017, almost 96,000 people in Canada were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), representing just over a quarter (30%) of all victims of police-reported violent crime.⁴ Four out of five victims of police-reported intimate partner violence were women (79%)—representing about 72,000 female victims. This is the most common kind of violence experienced by women.⁵  

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Police-reported statistics provide only a partial picture of the violence women experience. Sexual assault and intimate partner violence⁶ are vastly underreported. Statistics Canada estimates that 90% of the incidents of sexual assault and harassment⁷ and 70% of the incidents of intimate partner violence are never reported to the police.⁸ In 2018, only 29% of women staying in a VAW shelter reported their experience of abuse to the police.⁹

These numbers just hint at the reality women experience and that shelters report. The demands on shelters are constant.

More than a Bed paints a picture of the extraordinary work that shelters do helping women and their children to rebuild their lives and heal from abuse. But they continue to struggle with the lack of sustainable and adequate resources to do this work and provide needed beds, with VAW shelters increasingly being expected to do more with less.

Shelters regularly work at capacity or near capacity¹⁰—a situation that is compounded exponentially by Canada’s affordable housing crisis.¹¹ WSC’s national survey found close to half (41%) of VAW shelters reported that capacity issues were a “major challenge”, with four in ten shelters (39%) reporting that they “almost always” operated at capacity and another third (33%) reporting that they “often” operated at capacity.¹²

The fact is that the staff at VAW shelters do what it takes to provide support. Shelters will take in more people than they have funded beds. They will provide extensions for residents when they can’t—as is too often the case—find safe affordable housing in the community or secure a transitional or second stage housing unit. They will step up for women who are turned away, providing referrals, emailing or phoning around to other shelters to find alternative spaces, and helping to develop safety plans and accessing needed support services.  

All of which stretches resources to the max and reduces their capacity to take in new women who are seeking shelter.

More than a Bed provides important insight into the range of services that VAW shelters now offer to support an increasingly diverse clientele experiencing gender-based violence or struggling with histories of trauma. This group includes Indigenous women,¹³ women with significant mental health concerns, LGBTQ2+ people,¹⁴ women with disabilities and deaf women,¹⁵ young women,¹⁶ and immigrant and refugee women¹⁷—all groups that experience heightened risk of violence.

We know from the 2018 Survey of Residential Facilities for Victims of Abuse that more than one in five women (22%) aged 18 and over residing in shelters on the snapshot day in April 2018 were Indigenous, five times higher than their share of the general population (4%). One in ten (9%) of shelter residents were non-permanent residents, a rate six times higher than their representation in the overall population.¹⁸

These groups have unique needs that demand unique supports. Easier said than done as the More than a Bed survey makes clear. Shelters continually struggle to meet the demand for their service. There are significant gaps in service such as transportation (especially in rural areas), specialized supports for mental health and addictions challenges, assisting with the search for safe housing, and prevention services.

Many shelters are also limited in what they can provide for Indigenous women and their families. While 80% of VAW shelters reported serving Indigenous women, only 19% were “often” able to offer culturally appropriate programs.

The survey also found that less than half (47%) of VAW shelters reported that their services were “generally ac­cessible” for women who use a wheelchair or other mobility device; 26% were “somewhat accessible” and 26% were “difficult to access.” This is a significant barrier for women with disabilities seeking assistance.¹⁹

Persistent organizational challenges and funding shortfalls undercut the efforts of shelters time and time again. Three-quarters of VAW shelters indicated that insufficient funding was a “major challenge” facing their shelter; over half said that even supplying basic necessities such as food and transportation was difficult.

Providing support for victims of violence should be seen as an essential public service—yet it’s not. Most shelters cobble together financial support from different governments and then have to fundraise the rest. Incredibly, one in five shelters (20%) haven’t received a funding increase from their main government funder in more than ten years. Over half (55%) can’t make meet their operating expenses without fundraising and 10% can’t meet their operating expenses even with fundraising.

Not surprising, there are high rates of staff burnout due to low wages and poor benefits—as the chart below documents.²⁰ In every province, with the notable exception of Newfoundland and Labrador, average hourly wages for full-time councilors falls considerably short of the average for workers in the health care and social assistance sector.

Shelters have real problems finding and retaining qualified staff. Fully one-third (32%) of all workers in shelters are casual or temporary staff, brought in to support around the clock service—this compared to a benchmark of 15% for all temporary workers.²¹

The Standing Committee report, Surviving Abuse and Building Resilience, raises these same concerns about the gaps in service so starkly evident in all of the new information about the shelter sector. Shelter workers do incredible work—but Canada’s patchwork of programs simply isn’t up to the task.

The federal government’s current Strategy to Address and Prevent Gender Based Violence has ramped up federal programming and research efforts, and has increased funding to community-based organizations, but it lacks a holistic plan for preventing and responding to violence that would ensure coordinated, effective and responsive services across the country as well as equality of access for all women.

Federalism can’t be a barrier to women’s fundamental human rights, as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women said last year in her visit to Canada.²²

Surviving Abuse and Building Resilience represents a rare moment of consensus among the federal parties on a set of recommendations to create a plan that ensures comparable levels of services, increased multi-year funding for the repair and expansion of women’s shelters and transition houses, as well as the operational funding needed to run them.

This includes more funding for shelters serving Indigenous women and children and resources to expand culturally sensitive services that meet the needs of Indigenous women as well as immigrants, women with disabilities, transgender women and gender diverse people.

The federal election is five months away. Gender equality and women’s organizations will be asking all parties for their plans to end violence against women. Bake sales won’t cut it anymore. We’ve got the evidence. It’s long past time for action.

Katherine Scott is a Senior Economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Follow her on Twitter  @ScottKatherineJ.