Amid a report that shows tens of thousands of women are turned away from shelters every year, a front-line worker who helps women impacted by gender-based violence in Ontario has seen the system fail them over and over.
Marilia dos Santos, a gender-based violence counsellor at the Abrigo Centre in Toronto has been working with vulnerable people in crisis for 23 years.
“I’ve seen a lot of heartache,” shared dos Santos in an interview with CityNews. “It often starts with a slap, it often starts with name calling or when the woman is pregnant for the first time … All these years, I don’t think the numbers have lowered … it’s not getting better.”
Hundreds of women come to the Abrigo Centre, which provides counselling and support services for the Portuguese community, every year looking for help. Sometimes their abusers follow them and police have to be called.
Abrigo is not a shelter, but that’s what many women need when they’ve left an abusive situation. The centre will try to find the women a spot in an emergency shelter, but that’s not easy.
v/o Nellies, a shelter in Toronto, tells CityNews they alone had to turn 439 women away last year because they were full.
CityNews asked the provincial government how often women are turned away. A spokesperson did not answer that question, but stated, “If a women’s shelter is at capacity, they are required to directly connect women to another shelter or service, ensuring women and their children are not turned away when they need help.”
But the reality is they are being turned away.
Last year, the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) assessed the capacity at gender-based violence shelters and estimated less than a third of women and their dependents seeking refuge actually found a spot.
In 2022/2023, the FAO analysis finds 11,545 women were accommodated versus 37,287 who were turned away.
Despite that, the FAO concludes there is no plan to increase the number of beds and the number of beds capacity was reduced from 2,335 in 2017/2018 to 2,018 by 2022/2023.
In 2019/2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, over 53,000 women were turned away. The number of women seeking shelter went down during the pandemic, but has been on the rise again. At the same time the number of women able to access help is decreasing, from over 17,000 in 2017/2018 to 11,545 in 2022/23.
There have been 23 femicides in Ontario in the last seven months according to OAITH, the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses. It finds the majority are killed by an intimate partner or a family member.
Dos Santos told CityNews she has never lost a client, but one case felt close. “She was calling because he was on the other side of the door with a knife.”
“Every case is different but the root cause is the same,” explained dos Santos. “Most of these men also came from violent homes … they have some belief that [it’s] normal because that’s all they know. “
What dos Santos loves are the many successes; the countless women who have been able to escape the violence and rebuild.
“I help them reflect, I say, ‘Look at you. Look how much you’ve come. How resilient you are.’”
After 23 years on the front lines, Dos Santos is retiring in September after recently receiving an award for her work from Women Act, a charity that is striving to end gender-based violence.
But doesn’t plan on stopping once she is retired. Dos Santos says she plans to continue to help women by volunteering.
