Already strained, domestic violence shelters now often take in homeless women

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The London-area housing crisis is so severe, some agencies are noticing a new twist: homeless women with nowhere else to go are turning to shelters designed to help women and children fleeing domestic violence.

Jessie Rodger, who heads Anova, which provides shelter and counselling for abused women in London, says they are more frequently seeing women come for respite from a violent situation but later realizing the situation is something different.

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“We’re full all the time,” Rodger said, adding that women with nowhere to sleep are “going to call wherever they can to get a bed” even if they’re not technically in an abusive situation.

“We believe women if they tell us they have someone who is ‘coming after me,’” Rodger said. “We’re not going to investigate that. If she says she is at risk, we are going to bring her in.

“What happens is they come into shelter and then we start to work with them and then we learn maybe their story is a little bit different and you just needed a place to sleep. It happens a lot.”

Shelters are allowed to house women for up to four weeks, with an extension of two more weeks if needed, she said.

That timeline is not long enough for women and their children to get a subsidized housing unit, she said.

“We’re seeing women, especially with kids, staying with us for months,” she said “We just had a woman leave with her children – she had been with us since December.

“It used to be: ‘You can stay with us until you get your unit.’ Now, it’s: ‘You can stay with us until you find a family member who has enough room for you and your kids.’”

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What that means is women who are leaving a domestic abuse situation and who are at a higher risk may have to be turned away from places like Anova.

“If we tell them they have to leave, they will be high risk again,” Rodger said. “Meanwhile we have women on the phone at incredibly high risk and we don’t have space for them.”

Diane Harris is executive director of Woodstock’s Domestic Abuse Services Oxford and Ingamo Homes, a transitional housing agency for women and children fleeing domestic violence. She says the housing crisis “is a huge piece” of the strain facing her agencies.

“People can’t afford their lives,” she said. “People are calling the crisis line left, right, centre – the phone is always ringing – asking to come into the shelter.

“When we have women and children who need a place to stay but don’t fit the criteria for emergency abuse, then where do we send them? There’s no place to go.”

For Rodger, one of the answers would be to add more beds to their Clarke Road shelter, which hasn’t had more added since it was built in 2005. “Since then the city has grown and the intensity of violence has increased in the community.”

Chuck Lazenby, executive director of an emergency shelter known as the Unity Project, said she’s not homeless surprised women are turning to domestic violence shelters for emergency housing.

“And I wouldn’t blame anyone for trying,” she said. “We were talking about homelessness at crisis levels before COVID . . . things have escalated exponentially.”

hrivers@postmedia.com

@HeatheratLFP

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