It’s been a year now since we moved into our new shelter building and being in this space has given us so many opportunities to enhance the work we do with the women and their children who need us.
We went from an 8,900 sq. ft shelter that had only nine bedrooms for 36 beds, to a 21,800 sq. ft building with 22 bedrooms for up to 40 beds. More than just more bedrooms, the new shelter gives us more program space, more living space, more dining space, more play space for kids, more quiet space, and more space to unify our staff under one roof, allowing us to better communicate needs and brainstorm new and innovative approaches to trauma support and violence prevention.
Through our Transitional Housing Program, we continue to focus on finding ways to move women and their children out of the shelter and into safe, affordable housing, faster. Because while we make every effort to ensure our shelter feels like home, it is, after all, still a temporary living arrangement and our goal is to continue reducing average stay times. Over the past year, the average stay was 76 days.
We also continue to focus on delivering prevention programs that disrupt the cycle of violence. Last year, some of our staff were trained to run PAVE Prevention for women and Rock and Water for children and youth. PAVE Prevention (Proactive Anti-Violence Education) is about empowerment and Rock and Water is a world-renowned violence prevention program.
Finding ways to do more and offer more in our new space is always our top priority despite the fact that our operating costs of being in a bigger shelter are greater, especially with rising inflation rates. It’s because of your generous support that in-shelter supportive programs and violence prevention programs for women and their children are possible. Their impact, however, go beyond our shelter walls.
If the pandemic has highlighted anything, it’s that gender-based violence is still prevalent in our society. Nellie’s has long been known as a crisis organization for women escaping violence but, as we become a formative force in addressing violence, we are becoming a leader in reducing it. PAVE Prevention teachings will soon be a part of all of our Community Outreach and Support programs for women living in our community, and a variation of Rock and Water is being introduced in four schools across the GTA. We hope that many more will soon be lining up for a chance to have Rock and Water taught to their students.
Bringing these ground-breaking programs beyond our shelter walls and into the community is how we will stem the flow of violence on a systemic level. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2023, the idea is that by the time Nellie’s celebrates 100 years, there will be less of a need for us as a crisis organization.
Thank you for your ongoing and continuing support; it is what makes everything we do possible.
Jyoti Singh
Executive Director
