Alberta women’s shelters struggling, as demand soars and funding remains stagnant

Open this photo in gallery:

The people who help Alberta women escaping violence at home say years of stagnant funding, combined with soaring inflation, have left shelters in a precarious situation, with staff burning out and turnover running high.

They’re baffled that Alberta’s government – with the province’s highest-ever non-renewable resource revenues, and the Smith government’s stated focus on mental health and front-line staff – has left women’s shelters off a list of social services getting a significant operational funding boost this spring.

A dizzying array of financial ups and downs, and internal political churn within the United Conservative Party, have characterized the past several years in Alberta. But recently the government has shown it will make social issues a priority. For instance, Premier Danielle Smith has reindexed the province’s assistance to eligible adults with disabilities, and there was major emphasis in last month’s budget on new funding for adoption services.

There’s probably a long list of groups that feel unloved after the budget’s release. But the lack of attention to women’s shelters is an example of what is lost when no one with political clout makes a crucial public need a key priority.

The reverberations of the pandemic are still with us, as are the effects of the shadow pandemic – the awful uptick in domestic violence that resulted from people being stuck at home with financial and other stressors, and nowhere to flee to. Acts of domestic violence and gender-based violence often precede attacks outside the home.

In this year’s $68-billion-plus Alberta budget, the money for women’s shelters is a drop in the bucket. But with no increase to operational funding for many shelters, workers likely won’t get raises, and shelters will struggle to serve the province’s growing population and demand for services. At the same time, grocery and utility bills are soaring. Some rural shelters report people are showing up with their children, asking for food.

The sector has always had relatively high rates of staff turnover, but in the 2021-22 fiscal year it hit 45 per cent, according to Jan Reimer, the head of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters.

“We’ve never seen that since we started counting, back in the early 2000s,” said Ms. Reimer, whose umbrella group represents most of the shelters in the province. She noted that shelter workers – who staff all kinds of shifts and deal with a variety of family situations, addictions and mental health issues among clients – make less than many skilled public-sector workers. The average hourly wage for a full-time employee in an Alberta women’s shelter was $27.53 in 2021.

“We’ve had huge turnover of staff and we’re losing expertise,” she said.

The near-term history of funding shelters in Alberta follows the ups and downs of the province’s finances. A decade ago, when oil revenues were high, then-premier Alison Redford made women’s shelters a priority. (In 2011, Ms. Redford told me women’s shelters in Alberta shouldn’t have to struggle to keep the lights on and staff paid: “I mean, we have the oil sands.”)

In 2015, when the NDP’s Rachel Notley took office, money was certainly tighter. But that year the government boosted supports by $15-million.

Since then, it has mostly been a holding pattern. In the 2015-16 fiscal year, the government spent $49-million on operations for Alberta women’s shelters. In the coming fiscal year, 2023-24, that number is forecast at $55-million. But even that small increase over nine years, as listed in budget documents, doesn’t tell the whole story, Ms. Reimer said. In recent years the government has ended up spending about $55-million each year, even if a lower amount shows up in the budget estimates.

The Edmonton Women’s Shelter’s government grant was $3.4-million in 2017 for salaries, food, utilities and other supplies, and it has remained the same since. The organization now needs to fundraise about $1.5-million dollars a year to pay its bills, Ms. Reimer said. The Camrose Women’s Emergency Shelter has received about $1.2-million annually for operations, the same number for the past eight years.

Ms. Reimer said her group had met with Tanya Fir, Alberta’s parliamentary secretary for Status of Women, who was generous with her time and appreciative of the challenges shelters face – but who disappointingly indicated nothing is going to change before the May 29 election.

“When I asked about follow-up, it was ‘Well, let’s meet again in June,’” Ms. Reimer said.

Hunter Baril, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Seniors, Community and Social Services, said in an e-mail that shelters actually did get a big increase this year, with a boost of $8-million. But that number includes money to both women’s shelters and family violence prevention programs, a separate tranche of funding.

Not every organization sees the situation exactly the same way. Kim Ruse, chief executive of Calgary’s FearIsNotLove, said she wouldn’t complain about provincial funding this year. She believes there’s a lot of work being done by domestic violence groups that isn’t always captured by simply looking at the number of phone calls to shelters, or operational funding. Her group focuses on a suite of programs, including digital tools, and programs for men. It also runs a 50-bed shelter, Calgary’s largest.

“We had very few increases on the operational side. We’re expecting some this year,” Ms. Ruse said, adding that her organization has long fundraised about $6-million of its annual $13-million budget – something she acknowledges not every shelter can do, especially those in rural parts of the province.

Speaking from Edmonton, Ms. Reimer said shelter staff do much of society’s heavy lifting, on a relatively small budget. She added that shelter workers’ efforts to help children raised in conflict aren’t often appreciated.

Ms. Reimer pointed to a story told this year by one long-time staffer, tired from years of difficult work, who was planning her exit. One day there was a knock at her door. She opened it to find a young man, standing in the doorway with his girlfriend, who went on to explain how he had been in her shelter as a child.

“It was because of you that I’m now graduating from university, and I just came to say thank you,” he told her.

So she stayed.