(Ottawa) The federal government has announced funding to build and renovate hundreds of spaces for women and children fleeing violence.
Updated yesterday at 6:15 p.m.
Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen said Friday that more than $121 million would be invested by Ottawa to build and renovate a total of 430 places in shelters and transitional housing.
“The federal government is doing its part. Is there still work to do? Absolutely. And we are committed to doing so,” Mr. Hussen said in an interview.
Projects will be located across Canada, including Nunavut, Saskatchewan and Quebec.
The money comes from an initiative under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund, already announced in Budget 2021.
Lise Martin, Executive Director of Women’s Shelters Canada, says that although this is a good start, this funding is “unfortunately a drop in the ocean” to meet the enormous need of women seeking a safe haven.
This article was produced with the financial support of the Meta Fellowships and The Canadian Press for News.
Responders have sounded the alarm over the rise in domestic violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, worsening the already dire shortage of shelter places for women and children seeking places safe places to stay.
Mme Martin is disappointed that the government did not renew this funding in the 2022 budget. She would have liked to see this initiative renewed until the end of the National Housing Strategy, which is due to end in 2027-2028.
When asked if the federal government intended to renew the fund, Minister Hussen’s spokeswoman Arevig Afarian did not answer directly, but she cited other National housing that would benefit women.
The Rapid Housing Initiative, a program launched in 2020, will create 10,000 new homes across the country, a third of which will support women or mothers and their children, Ms.me Afarian.
The government has committed 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.
The funding announced Friday will go directly to the non-profit organizations that run the shelters, said Minister Hussen. Ottawa also has the ability to partner with provinces and territories as well as organizations directly involved in the work, he said. “In some cases, they know what the needs are, and the money flows more quickly. »
Provincial governments may also not step in when offered federal funding. In 2020 in Saskatchewan, then Status of Women Minister Tina Beaudry-Mellor admitted she was unaware that the province was leaving money on the table and not taking advantage of certain federal programs that would have created funds for shelters.
This article was produced with the financial support of the Meta Fellowships and The Canadian Press for News.