Ottawa is investing in shelters for women fleeing violence

Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen said Friday that more than $ 121 million will be invested by Ottawa to build and renovate a total of 430 areas in shelters and transitional housing.

The federal government does its part. Is there still work? Absolutely. And we promised to do itsaid Mr. Hussen in an interview.

The projects are located throughout Canada, including Nunavut, Saskatchewan and Quebec.

The money comes from an initiative under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund, already announced in Budget 2021.

Unfortunately a drop in the ocean

Lise Martin, Executive Director of Women’s Shelters Canada, said that while this is a good start, this funding is sad drops in the ocean to meet the enormous needs of women seeking safe haven.

Women workers have sounded the alarm at the rise in domestic violence since the COVID-19 pandemic began, adding to the dire shortage of shelter places for women and children seeking shelter. safe places to stay.

Ms. Nadismaya. Martin that the government has not renewed this fund in the 2022 budget. He wants to renew the initiative until the end of the National Housing Strategy, in 2027-2028.

When asked if the federal government intended to renew the fund, Minister Hussen’s spokesman Arevig Afarian did not respond directly, but he mentioned other National housing that would benefit women.

The Rapid Housing Initiative, a program launched in 2020, will create 10,000 new homes nationwide, a third of which will support women or mothers and their children, Afarian said.

The government has allocated new funds in this year’s budget to create at least 6,000 new affordable housing units, with at least a quarter of the funding going to women-focused projects, she added.

Direct resource funding

The funding announced on Friday will go directly to non-profit organizations that operate the shelters, Minister Hussen said. Ottawa also has the ability to partner with provinces and territories as well as with organizations directly involved in the work, he said. In some cases, they know what the needs are, and the money flows faster.

Provincial governments may also not intervene when offering federal funding. In 2020 in Saskatchewan, then-Status of Women Minister Tina Beaudry-Mellor admitted that she was unaware that the province was leaving money on the table and not benefiting from some federal programs that would make it possible to create funds for in shelters.