2023 marks 50 years since we first opened our doors. It is an incredible milestone, and a reminder of the shelter and support we have given to thousands of women and their children fleeing violence, trauma and homelessness since 1973.

To mark our 50-year anniversary, we’re sharing 50 facts about Nellie’s. Read on to learn about our shelter, our community programs, and so much more.

1. Breaking the cycle of violence by focusing on empowerment and prevention is an essential focus for Nellie’s as we move into our next 50 years. Not only are we supporting women when they experience violence, but we are now also acting preventatively in order to fight for a better future.
2. In 2022, Nellie’s staff were trained to integrate a powerful empowerment self-defense (ESD) program into our support programs for women, and we became the first gender-based violence organization in Canada to implement the world-renowned anti-bullying program aimed at children, Rock and Water.
3. For both our ESD and Rock and Water programs, the approach is very different from the traditional model for self-defense. The former provides training on proactively preventing, responding and healing from traumatic events, whereas the latter teaches kids through a series of exercises and games about setting their own boundaries, making independent decisions, using communication, and respecting others’ limits.
4. In addition to ESD within our shelter, this program has since also been adapted into a community workshop. In the first four months of running our prevention programs, Nellie’s taught a total of 297 unique participants at the shelter and in the community.
5. While Rock and Water has already made an incredible impact on the children living at Nellie’s, we’re now spreading these powerful anti-bullying techniques to children beyond our walls. Last year we ran an 8-week pilot program in a Grade 4/5 class in a school in Brampton, and we hope to bring this program to additional schools this year.
6. In 2023, Nellie’s was selected to showcase our empowerment self-defense work at the 2023 NGO CSW67 Forum in New York City, an event that runs in parallel to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
7. The forum, which was attended by 15,000 people from 139 different countries, consisted of hundreds of events throughout a two-week period. In our presentation, we shared how shifting our focus from reaction to prevention is crucial to ending gender-based violence and how it has allowed us to discover the role that empowerment self-defense can play in helping women achieve transformative justice.
8. In 2023, 550 people were supported by our Community Support & Outreach (CSO) programs, including Senior Socialization, which provides vital engagement for older clients; Women on the Move for women with disabilities; Women Ending Abuse and Violence (WEAV), which focuses on teaching women about healthy dating and relationships; and our food program.
9. Nellie’s runs three to five different CSO programs every week.
10. Thanks to a government grant and in-kind support from our incredible community, 85 seniors participated in our Senior Socialization program last year, which included regular computer literacy sessions, bi-weekly yoga classes, and trips to attractions, such as the Royal Ontario Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Ripley’s Aquarium.
11. In the past year, our WEAV program has focused on providing healthy dating and relationship guidance for young women through a new five-week workshop. Designed to teach women how to keep themselves safe in relationships, the workshop creates a welcoming space where women can learn about the spectrum of abuse, signs that can lead to unhealthy relationships, and common terminology like gaslighting and love bombing.
12. While the Healthy Dating & Relationships workshops were initially intended for high school and university students, their success has snowballed, with requests pouring in from other shelters and community centres, for women of all ages.
13. Over the last year, 60 workshop sessions were delivered through the WEAV program, with 105 different women participating.
14. Designed to address the gap in services for women with physical disabilities who have experienced abuse, our Women on the Move program resumed in November 2023 with a new cohort of 25 women enrolled, at least 10 of whom are consistently attending each session.
15. For over 20 years, the Nellie’s food program has been supporting women and their children living in our community.
16. Every week, 120 families rely on our food program to access a basic human need — that’s as much as double the number we were serving just a year prior.
17. From week to week, our food program fills food baskets with a wide variety of foods, like fresh fruit and vegetables, pasta and rice, peanut butter, and milk. We round out each basket with stock from our own non-perishable food pantry to ensure that each family receives a nourishing mix of protein, canned and boxed goods, and produce.
18. In January 2024, our food program moved into a new space inside the Kimbourne Park United Church. This new location has the potential to expand our program, and we’re hoping to soon offer weekly milk, eggs, meat, and bread for our clients.
19. Nellie’s is currently participating in Food Bank Canada’s Menstrual Equity Fund Pilot to help address period poverty in Canada.
20. Last summer, 11 children staying at Nellie’s participated in a Learn to Bike program, along with children living at The Redwood, another Toronto-area shelter for women and children. Through this program, the kids each received their very own new bike and helmet, and learned about bike safety and how to ride. Plus, the bikes and helmets were theirs to keep and take with them when they left the shelter.
21. In our Chef’s Corner, a part of our Children’s Program, we teach older kids living at Nellie’s how to make simple recipes like sandwiches and fruit salad — with the goal that when they leave the shelter, they know how to make easy snacks or meals on their own.
22. In 2023, Nellie’s joined over 100 organizations in signing an open letter to the Ontario government to declare Intimate Partner Violence an epidemic.
23. Thanks to a financial contribution from Health Canada, we’re currently developing a brand-new substance use program which aims to increase the knowledge of and build additional capacity for harm reduction services within violence against women shelters.
24. Backpacks aren’t just for back-to-school time at Nellie’s. We fill backpacks year-round with clothing and other essentials that moms who come to Nellie’s might need for their little ones. For moms of babies or toddlers, the backpacks can also conveniently double as diaper bags.
25. With a focus on empowerment and prevention, we’re shifting the tide from measuring how many people are coming through our doors, to how we are truly changing the world. The hope is that by the time Nellie’s celebrates 100 years, there will be less of a need for us as a crisis organization.

2023 marks 50 years since we first opened our doors. It is an incredible milestone, and a reminder of the shelter and support we have given to thousands of women and their children fleeing violence, trauma and homelessness since 1973.

To mark our 50-year anniversary, we’re sharing 50 facts about Nellie’s. Read on to learn about our shelter, our community programs, and so much more.

1. Over fifty years ago, a group of women activists realized that in the city of Toronto there were only 40 beds available for homeless women and over 400 beds for homeless men. Moved to action by this inequity, Nellie’s was founded in 1973.
2. Nellie’s was named after Nellie McClung, the pioneer feminist who challenged the Canadian government in the Supreme Court of Canada to have women declared persons under the law.
3. Opened in 1973, our first shelter had 16 beds and was located on Broadview Ave.
4. The shelter was initially established for young homeless women dealing with teenage pregnancy, suicide, self-harm, crime, prostitution, ill-health and abuse, but staff began to notice that most of the women accessing Nellie’s were middle-aged and older women fleeing domestic violence.
5. In 1978, Nellie’s purchased the beautiful historic residential building that became home for more than four decades.
6. Over the years, in response to the overwhelming need, Nellie’s increased its occupancy rate to 36 beds and made the main focus of the organization disrupting violence against women and their children.
7. In the early ’90s, current Toronto MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam worked at Nellie’s as an overnight relief worker.
8. In 2002, Nellie’s opened its Community Support and Outreach office on Queen St. E. Here we provided programming, transitional housing support, a food bank, and more to women and their children who had moved out of the shelter and those who lived in our community at risk of homelessness.
9. Thanks to a generous grant from La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, in 2017 Nellie’s launched a children’s program to address the wide range of issues facing children living at the shelter, while also providing them with a safe space to play, explore, and laugh.
10. Two years later, an additional grant allowed Nellie’s to expand the program to also focus on supporting teens living in our shelter.
11. What started out as a simple craft-based program for little ones in the basement playroom of our old shelter has grown, and now our children’s program spans three bright, window-lined rooms in our new shelter, with spaces and programming suited for kids of all ages.
12. In 2019, Nellie’s secured a substantial government investment for the purchase of a new shelter building and began raising capital to complete the necessary renovations.
13. Before we could move into our new shelter, the building required a lot of renovations — including historic brick and window restoration, roof repair, plumbing upgrades, and fireproofing.
14. In 2022, Nellie’s moved into its current home, a stunning three-storey Victorian building in the east end of Toronto, which was originally built in 1901.
15. The new shelter is 21,800 sq. ft., compared to the old shelter’s 8,900 sq. ft. footprint.
16. Our new shelter has capacity for up to 38 beds across 22 bedrooms (an increase from 36 beds across 9 rooms in the old building), giving some privacy to each family unit.
17. Each bedroom has its own private bathroom — four of which are barrier-free.
18. 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 for our staff to work together on new and innovative approaches to trauma support and violence prevention.
19. When visitors walk into Nellie’s, one of the first things they’ll see is our “Hearts & Hands” mural hanging in our common room. Created in 2002 by residents and staff at Nellie’s, it represents the community and hope found within our walls.
20. The move to our new shelter led to us closing the Community Support and Outreach office on Queen St. In 2023 we opened a new office on Cosburn Ave. in East York to continue offering these services.
21. This past summer, Nellie’s invested in an e-bike for staff members to use while running errands or when commuting between our shelter and our community location on Cosburn. Eco-friendly, cost-effective, and FUN!
22. With pet-friendly bedrooms, a pet care room, and an outdoor play area, we’re thrilled that our new shelter is pet-friendly! We’re proud to be one of just a handful of shelters in Toronto to accept pets — because domestic violence victims shouldn’t have to choose between their own safety or the safety of their beloved animals.
23. In 2022/2023, 81 women stayed at Nellie’s, along with 61 children. During this time, one baby was also born at the shelter!
24. Over the same time period, 104 women received housing support from Nellie’s through our Transitional Housing Program. This program helps women who have situations of violence, poverty, and homelessness access safe and affordable housing.
25. In the last year, the average length of stay at Nellie’s was five months — about twice as long as the previous year due to the critical lack of affordable housing availability in Toronto.

Stay tuned for part 2, coming up next month!