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Somebody Must Say These Things is an 8-part series that fully investigates Violence Against Women in Nova Scotia. By speaking with survivors and the women who make it their mission to end the issue for good, this podcast casts a stark, unapologetic light on our society’s continued insufficient acknowledgement of Violence Against Women. We follow the stories of survivors and examine the critical, unappreciated role of transition houses. We also speak with the boots-on-the-ground workers who fight everyday to help women and children in need. Together, their insights offer a new, clear perspective on the current status of abuse and violence in the province of Nova Scotia and what we need to do to ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Our hope is that by sharing their stories, you will become an advocate for change.
This podcast was made possible by the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia. THANS exists to eliminate violence against women in Nova Scotia. Their organizations provide a full range of support services to women and their children in a safe, supportive environment and provide survivors of violence with opportunities to learn about available resources and alternatives to facilitate informed personal choices and decisions."
THANS is not 100% government funded by the provincial or federal government. This needs to change. Go to thans.ca to learn how you can help.
This podcast is narrated by Grace McNutt.
Produced by Podstarter.
Ginger MacPhee
You just arrived home from work. You stopped off at the mailbox on the way here. It's been a busy day. You look down at the stack of mail, assessing which ones are junk, which ones are important, and which ones are going to cost you. You leave the threatening looking ones to last. Opening your paycheck, you lament the fact that you haven't seen a pay raise in a long while despite being busier than ever. Eventually, you get to the bills. As you peel them all open, you notice your costs have risen again. Your stomach rumbles, you decide to go to the grocery store, maybe fixing a nice supper will make you feel better. You can make the leftovers last for lunch tomorrow, and maybe the next day. On the way there you pass the usual neighborhood sites. But more and more you see encampments of unhoused people tents draped in tarps huts made of pallets. It feels like a few years ago, it was a rare sight. But now it's the norm. You get to the grocery store. As you push a cart around looking for the best deals. You remember a time when you didn't add up as you went along. More and more, you're feeling like this squeeze is not just a trend. Everyone you know feels financially strained, working harder and more hours just to keep on their monthly bills. Credit card bills are creeping up mortgages and rent too. We may not be living in the 25% unemployment of the Great Depression. But this silent depression is certainly historic. The chances are you can relate to this in some way, maybe a little too much. You may be feeling strain, personally and in the relationships in your life, things may feel less stable. But imagine if your life was already less stable. Imagine that you were already on the brink before this post COVID period of squeeze began. In 2019, Statistics Canada released a report that 44% of women report having experienced some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime. Now reframe these difficult times with that additional layer, the potential risk of sudden explosive violence, living in fear of abuse that can often be life changing or deadly, gender based violence, one of the most pervasive, deadly and deeply rooted human rights violations. And in these difficult times, it's now reaching epidemic levels in Nova Scotia.
Jodi McDavid
We've never seen anything like this before. Never.
Laurie McGinnis
Lack of affordable housing today is a big issue not just for our clients, but for everybody. But in particular, where we have clients who are living in such marginalized circumstances. It's impossible.
Brenda Wood
We have never been funded for the work that we do.
Ann de Ste Croix
Within an organization that's underfunded and potentially understaffed. There's only so much time to go around.
Laurie McGinnis
For the clients that we serve. Many of them are living in poverty. Many of them are unemployed or underemployed.
Jodi McDavid
The experience of people coming to us and asking for water and a sandwich. Is this a depression ? Like this is what my grandmother told me about when I was a little girl. It's dark. It's very dark.
Ginger MacPhee
Welcome to Somebody Must Say These Things. I'm your host, Ginger McPhee.
Since our last season of Somebody Must Say These Things. So much has changed for the transition House Association of Nova Scotia. Just to refresh THANS is an umbrella organization of violence against women organizations, with 11 members providing services across rural Nova Scotia. Each member of THANS is an independent nonprofit organization and maintains its own staff to provide services to women and children in their communities. Communities needs which may include safe shelter, 24 hour crisis lines, outreach services and or second stage housing to women and their children who have experienced violence or abuse. In Nova Scotia, violence against women organizations have long histories; developing out of an observed, urgent need for women and children requiring protection and have grown and evolved over the decades. In the wake of the 2020, mass shooting, a tragedy that was intimately connected to gender based violence, and COVID, THANS and partner organizations saw an influx of support and visibility. Government funding surged, and hope that a new dawn of wider stable support was beginning.
Laurie McGinnis
I would say post mass casualty inquiry, the government has put forth more money to help support, send advocacy groups for domestic violence. But it's never enough because the problem is vast.
Ginger MacPhee
This is Laurie McGinnis. She's the counseling supervisor at the Halifax Transition House Association and their shelter, Bryony House.
Laurie McGinnis
Domestic violence, intimate partner abuse is one of the best kept secrets. So whatever we think we know, whatever our stats are showing us, it's not accurate, it is not accurate at all. There's a lot of people who are living in silence, who are living in fear. It's hard to talk about it. But, I'm glad to talk about it because I want it to not be the best kept secret, I want it to be something that everybody is talking about, actually, that everybody is aware of.
Ginger MacPhee
But as new cycles churned, and focus shifted, things slowly, gradually shifted back to the original status quo. And then it got much, much worse.
In 2020, the profound loss of the lives of 22 people was perpetrated by a man previously reported for violence against women, THANS and partners were suddenly swamped with funding opportunities, engagement, and media attention.
Ann de Ste Croix
My name is Anne de St. Croix, I'm the provincial coordinator with the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, I do some of the background work. So I don't provide frontline services. But I do advocacy, media relations, government relations and project management. I think the mass casualty really highlighted the realities in our province. And I think the fact that it also took place during the COVID 19 pandemic, just amplifies what the pandemic was also highlighting, which was that home is not always safe for everyone. Of course, when that happened, there was an influx of funding for our organizations. And with the Mass Casualty Commission's recommendations, they acknowledged that the women's sector was or has been historically underfunded, and that that needs to be rectified. So as of right now, there hasn't been, like a core funding increase, a stable increase in funding that we can rely on from year to year. But there was an influx of funding that came and that came with a recognition that the conditions in our province are dire, and that in order to address them, we need to provide adequate support to the organizations that are in turn supporting women and children across the province. I think with the funding, we were able to, you know, especially because this was happening during the pandemic, we were able to use some of that new funding to reach women that were not able to come in person into our transition houses, into our outreach centers, we were able to raise awareness that we are here, we have been deemed an essential service. So we're operating 24/7, 365 days a year. And we were able to create new programs as well. So you know, maybe programs that had to be shelved for a couple of years, because the funding just wasn't there anymore. We were able to bring those back. So that could include programming for children and youth within the transition houses, or for young moms in the transition houses. The heightened awareness of domestic violence in the province has also made it so that people who didn't necessarily know where to go before suddenly knew that we were there. And you know, they're seeing us in the news, they're seeing us listed as resources on government announcements about you know, updates on the lockdown and stuff like that. So I think that that not only allowed us to be able to offer more during the pandemic, and after the mass casualty, but it also provided people with more information and more avenues, more pathways to connect with us too.
Ginger MacPhee
But sadly, it did not sustain.
Brenda Wood
That's basically historical. We have never been funded for the work that we do.
Laurie McGinnis
This is Brenda Wood. She works with women transitioning back into community living at Chrysalis House. She's been working in the sector for over two decades.
Brenda Wood
I mean, I've been here for 20 years, and we've always had to raise money every single year. And with deep gratitude to our community, that's where that extra funding comes from. And we're very creative. And using what we have, we always have been, we meet the needs of the women, the best way we can, sometimes with great ingenuity. But that lack of funding is a historical thing.
Ginger MacPhee
Demand has surged for the services of THANS, more women and children need their support than ever before. This is Jodi McDavid, She's the Executive Director of the Cape Breton Transition House Association, and their shelter Willow house.
Jodi McDavid
And then the other thing is that if somebody is in housing, you don't want them to lose their housing. And we've started to see people who can't pay their power bills, or oil bills, or rent or something, you know, there might also be abuse in that situation, or they might have ended up in that situation to leave abuse, to, but now their housing is at risk. So to be able to provide people with these food vouchers, it may keep them in their housing just that little bit longer, right. And we have seen more demand for that. And it is a little stressful related to funding because we had some funding during COVID, for extra things that people needed, and stuff like that. But for most of us, our core funding doesn't cover things like this to help the community. You know, we have a lot of people that have used our services, and they use them off and on, like, over a period of years, right? What's happening now is all those people that use it off and on are trying to use it at the same time. So there's like a rush on our services. And you know, we don't have the funding or the room to respond to that as well as we'd like to. And then the other thing is now we're starting to see people who never used our services before, who have to use our services, because they are being affected by everything. Financial disagreements are one of the biggest causes of, you know, disputes among partners. I don't think that's a surprise to anybody. So that becomes an issue of the lack of housing. So people are trapped in those situations. And coupled with the isolation and stuff like that we're seeing like, during COVID, we'll see an increase of like, alcoholism and stuff, I mean this is anecdotal. I don't have stats to back all of this up, but it's just what we're seeing every day. And, yeah, so we're starting to see people, you know, come to us that haven't come to us before. But we still have that old population of users that needed us once in a while in emergencies. But now we have a new population of users who need us once in a while in emergencies. So that's a little disconcerting. And just in terms of how we are going to respond to that, and I don't think we've hit the peak of it yet, either. We realized like a lot of people this summer, they were sleeping rough. And we started to think about, well, where are they going in the winter? Yeah, and I will say even though people have always come to us, looking for some help with groceries and things like that, like we didn't have the experience of people coming to us and asking for like water in a sandwich before and that for me was when I was like, Is this is this a depression? Like this is what my grandmother told me about when I was a little girl. But I remember closing the door and saying, Holy [exploitative language], like people are coming here for sandwiches. And like we had a mother come down the street, because we had a generator here. And, you know, she asked us if we could boil water for her baby's formula, you know. I'm like, oh my god, it's dark. It's very dark. We've never seen anything like this before. Never.
Ginger MacPhee
As you can imagine, every transition house has complex needs and giving the support needed requires expertise and resources.
Ann de Ste Croix
At a base level. The women who are coming into our transition houses, in many instances have had to leave all of their below meanings behind.
Ginger MacPhee
This is Ann de Ste Croix Coordinator for the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia.
Ann de Ste Croix
They're coming into shelter with the clothes on their backs. And the same with their children if they have children that accompany them. So I think basic necessities like clothing, like furniture for when they are prepared and able to transition out of our shelters, and in many instances, they need housing support, as well, because of the housing crisis, right now, of course, housing is something that is hard to come by. Many need counseling as well, which is another service that our shelters offer. Broadly speaking, I think what they really need is someone to tell them that it's going to be okay, and that there's someone who is able to support them, and listen to them, and lay out options for them as well, because it can be really difficult to know what to do next. So part of our role, part of the frontline staff role, is to outline what those options are and how they can move forward with our lives.
Ginger MacPhee
In the Violence Against Women sector, organizations typically don't talk with each other about their finances, it has always been understood that there are finite resources, and that they were limited to a piece of the proverbial pie, always knowing that not all slices were equal, but perhaps thought they were equitable. Organizations have been faced with having to compete for more with tensions and resentment often resulting in the inequalities that arose.
Ann de Ste Croix
The way that the funding system is set up right now creates this pressure. So on the one hand, we're being told by our funders that we need to collaborate, that we need to work together to provide a continuum of care for victims and survivors, which we certainly do. But on the other hand, we're operating within a system that has limited funding, and all of our transition houses need that funding and need to offer more programming and need to offer more support. But when the funding to do so is limited, then again, it creates this kind of problem that we encounter. I think it's manufactured. And I do understand as well, like from our funders, there's only so much funding to go around. But where we're seeing the impacts that being underfunded has on our society, that there needs to be priority made for our sector and, and for the women and children in the province. Filling out a funding application, getting letters of support, getting references, that all takes time. And within an organization that's underfunded and potentially understaffed, there's, so there's only so much time to go around. So I think that that does, again, create more pressure on the organization, when you're struggling to find enough funding to be able to continue a certain program into the next year, that takes time away from actually being able to provide that programming, for example. So I think, when there's chronic underfunding, when you're spending all of your time trying to secure that funding for the next fiscal year, you're in survival mode rather than thriving. I think it can lead the sector to feeling undervalued. And again, where on the one hand, we're being told by funders and by the government, that this needs to be addressed, that the epidemic of violence in our province is a priority, but that we're not seeing actual action behind that. It can be disheartening. And when you're already working in a position where you're encountering trauma, you're encountering people who are in really dire situations, knowing that the program that you're running may not be able to continue, and you may not be able to support that person in that specific way in in the next year, can be difficult for those working in the sector and of course difficult for the victims and survivors themselves as well.
Ginger MacPhee
Now, imagine a client arrives at a transition house, then another client arrives, and another. Each of them individuals in unique situations and with complex needs. Where are the children? Are the police involved? Is there still a risk of violence? Now imagine you are full. You cannot take anyone else in.
Laurie McGinnis
Everybody's experiencing that but in particular for the clients that we serve, it is even more so because many of them are living in poverty. Many of them are unemployed or underemployed. Some are unemployable for different reasons.
Ginger MacPhee
Here's Bryony House's, Laurie McGinnis.
Laurie McGinnis
Lack of affordable housing today is a big issue, not just for our clients, but for everybody. But, in particular, where we have clients who are living in such marginalized circumstances, it's impossible. And in recent months, we had clients staying at the shelter for way past the requisite six to eight weeks, because they didn't have anywhere to go. And that was really sad. And it was really frustrating. And it was maddening. That was another part of the whole equation. It wasn't just for the people who were in our services and supports, it was the extensive waitlist that we had. And some of those people were safe at wanting to leave, but some of them were unsafe. So we often would have to relocate these clients or potential clients to other transition houses in the province, some out of province, just so that they could be safe. Or if they had children, and the situation was, you know, untenable, they would have to leave because then child protective services would become involved and they'd be separated from their children and without anywhere to go. It's just a very sad vicious cycle. I think it looks different now than it did even five or ten years ago. Like I said, I've been on the front lines for 16 years. I've been with Bryony House and I'm seeing a huge shift. Some of our clients are coming from the tent communities. Some of our clients are coming from their car. Some of our clients are coming from couch-surfing, some of them are coming from a family member's home. But even family members have, you know, expiry dates for company. And that's what they see it as, company. Especially if you have children, and people don't mind helping you in a crisis at the moment. But, as far as opening their door and saying come stay with us be safe, we'll look after you and look after your children. It's not tenable. And it's not desirable, because what you're dealing with is not just a mother and her child or mother and her children, you're dealing with a mother and her children, and the impact of domestic violence, the impact of abuse, the impact of sexual violence, the impact of insecurity, the impact of fear, the impact of trauma. All of these things and a lot more things, they come together. And when you are in a safe space, that is the time that you're going to start to, especially as a child, you're not consciously doing it, it's just all gonna seem like [exhales] I can let this out. And it doesn't come out in a nice way.
Ginger MacPhee
So how do we fix this? Often when urgent issues arise, it's solely on the executive director to be on call. Frontline staff need much more support, and identifying a more supportive on-call service would be a huge leap forward. There are also needs to increase outreach staffing, a great coordination of grant funding, leveraging cost savings with the coordination of purchasing across different organizations, expanding community services and stronger connections with provincial sport lines, like the mental health crisis line. All of these innovations are needed if there is any hope of meeting the needs of the growing number of victims of gender based violence. But is this enough?
In the forthcoming episodes, we will be exploring this new landscape of rising violence and fear and those trying to fight back with limited resources, exploring topics like safety, justice, and even how technology influences abuse. Gender Based Violence's complex impact attacks individuals, families and communities. But it also places a costly burden on the health, social and justice systems. We want to expose the truth. Somebody must say these things and we will not be quiet. If you've heard some of your own story in this episode, and feel a need to reach out for some support, please find your local shelter@thans.ca. Also, if this podcast and its message resonates with you, and you want to help us in our mission, reach out to your local transition house to hear what their needs are. Each shelter has their own website that you can get directed to from thans.ca