Ingrid Graham
“We need money, plain and simple. COVID-19 is impacting our bottom line”
In mid-April, a young pregnant woman living at Nellie’s went for a routine prenatal appointment. As a precaution, her doctor tested her for COVID-19 even though she had no symptoms.
It came back positive.
Nellie’s staff quickly helped her move into one of the city’s quarantine centres to protect shelter residents and staff. But soon after, other women and their children started to show symptoms of the virus.
“It’s tough, because when your mom gets it, you’re likely to get it especially if you’re sharing a room with her,” says Ingrid Graham, Director of Development, noting that to date there has been eleven confirmed cases in the shelter. “The good news is that no one has needed to be hospitalized and everyone is recovering well.”
In a shelter with 40 beds that was originally only designed for 16, it’s challenging to practice physical distancing. There simply isn’t enough space.
“It’s the reality of shelter living, especially in an old shelter. This is just another reason why it’s so important for us to move into the new shelter as soon as possible. Women will actually have private space and families won’t be sharing rooms with single women or other families,” says Ingrid.
She added that, until the pandemic hit, the conversation around the new shelter had been focused around greater accessibility and greater privacy for residents. Now, that conversation has shifted towards Nellie’s ability to increase health and safety measures.
“The new shelter means we will have more space. We’ll also have more bedrooms and private washrooms. Our current shelter has so few washrooms that staff now have to walk women to the washroom to minimize contact with anything else.”
Construction and renovations are currently underway at the new shelter but won’t be complete until 2021.
To halt the COVID-19 outbreak, all of the women and their children moved out of the shelter and into a nearby hotel. Nellie’s is not the first shelter to have to do this. Staff moved to the hotel as well to continue to create positive spaces for the women through our programs and workshops that offer therapeutic healing, personal growth and distraction during this challenging and stressful time.
Every inch of the shelter was thoroughly cleaned and disinfected but a pandemic specialist determined that it wasn’t safe for all of the women to return—there simply isn’t enough space to safely practice physical distancing. And so, to protect the health and safety of all our women and their children, as well as our front-line staff, we continue to operate from the hotel.
“It’s a complete shift in how we do business right now. We’ve had a lot of donors call us and ask how they can help; we need money, plain and simple. COVID-19 is impacting our bottom line,” says Ingrid.
To make a secure online donation, please donate here nellies.org. Or, you can make an even bigger impact by becoming a monthly donor. As a regular monthly supporter, your generosity provides critical and consistent funding towards our daily efforts to help women and their children impacted by abuse, trauma and homelessness. Automatic monthly payments are easy to set up, convenient, and create a lasting impact on the lives of women and their children at Nellie’s.
“We’re still here and we’ll still be here at the end of this. When women who are at home need us, we’re still going to be here for them when they call.”
