Forty-five years ago, Nellie’s opened its doors as one of the first women’s shelters in Toronto. As the city has changed, so has Nellie’s. What was a shelter of 16 beds for young homeless women has become a safe space of 40 beds for women and their children fleeing domestic violence, poverty, mental health barriers to accessing housing or other systemic oppressions.
As our shelter’s occupancy rate has increased to its present day capacity, so have our challenges — challenges we continue to successfully meet.
Last year saw an unprecedented number of babies, toddlers and older children living in our shelter. Being in a building that was designed to house less than half the number of people, none of them being children, providing for their personal care and wellbeing has posed a unique challenge. We quickly adjusted our budgets and programming to adapt to the needs of our youngest residents and we reached out to the community for help. A call-out on social media filled one of our most pressing needs—diapers. And our community support stretched far and wide as donations flooded in from across the city, across the country and even from around the world.
These considerate in-kind donations became a great support to our general operating budget, allowing us to allocate funds to the vital services and programming specific to the needs of the women and children living in our community. Often, our funding is tied to providing a specific program or service, which although essential, does not give us the flexibility to meet emerging needs. General funding allows us to provide programs and services with the women’s specific and immediate needs in mind. This creates the greatest impact.
Last year, generous general donations from organizations such as the Greater Toronto Apartment Association and the Tippet Foundation went towards designing and running such programs. One such program is our food program, which supports community volunteers. And, without the support of all our donors, so much of what we do wouldn’t be possible — for which we are profoundly thankful.
Our role in the community is a demanding one. And our board members have risen to the challenge by actively engaging in robust training, healthy discussions and an intensive revision of our policies to ensure that we are fulfilling our mission and vision to the best of our abilities. They are our leaders and we look to them for clarity and guidance as we take the brave steps towards creating a new three-year Strategic Plan from the framework laid out in our Transitional Strategic Plan (outlined in the 2016-2017 Annual Report Agency Report).
Our Strategic Plan will focus our scarce resources, both in terms of finances and staff time, in order to create the greatest impact on our clients and our community. We will look at the women we serve and how we can continue to best meet their current and future needs to result in more successful outcomes.
To see a full report on the shelter please read our 2017-2018 Annual Report
