The committee met to study women's shelters and transitional housing. Witnesses included Rachelle Walker (Muskoka Women's Advocacy Group), Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat (National Indigenous Women's Housing Network), Laisa Audlaluk-Watsko (Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada), Sue Bookchin (Be the Peace Institute), Mylène Bigaouette and Julie St-Pierre-Gaudreault (Fédération des maisons d’hébergement pour femmes), and Jasmine De Fina (SafeHope Home).
Rachelle Walker described barriers in rural Muskoka, including limited transit, patchy cell service, and a housing market where landlords prefer short-term rentals, forcing shelters to operate above capacity. She recommended that the federal government provide substantial operational funding for shelters and transitional housing, not just capital grants, and that funding account for geographic differences, such as expanding transit so women are not isolated or forced to return to abusers.
Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat highlighted staffing shortages, aging infrastructure (45% of shelters needing major repairs), and the housing crisis causing longer stays and more turnaways. She noted that fundraising is nearly universal for core costs like salaries and renovations. She stressed that indigenous women face a "grey zone" off-reserve and advocated for co-developed, distinctions-based solutions, including training indigenous people to build their own homes using natural materials, and warned that without action, conditions will worsen.
Laisa Audlaluk-Watsko called the lack of safe housing for Inuit women a human rights emergency, citing 52.9% overcrowding and 59% of communities with no shelter. She rated federal housing policies at two out of five, citing no stable multi-year funding, unaffordable benchmarks, and short funding cycles. She recommended a dedicated Inuit women's housing fund, permanent funding for the shelter initiative for Inuit women and children, urban Inuit services, and accountability mechanisms with binding timelines and outcome targets.
Sue Bookchin argued for an ecosystem approach beyond transition houses, including women's centres, outreach, and mental health navigators, and said the burden of displacement should shift to perpetrators. She recommended a guaranteed basic income for survivors, a national gender-based violence commissioner, and investment in supported affordable housing. She noted that in Nova Scotia, most shelters are run by white women, and that staff often lack standardized trauma-sensitive training, which can harm trust and retraumatize clients.
Mylène Bigaouette and Julie St-Pierre-Gaudreault reported that in 2024-2025, 81% of women in their member shelters experienced psychological violence, 54% physical, and 49% economic, and that 39% left to unstable housing. They said shelters turned away 9,000 women in Quebec last year due to lack of space, forcing women into hidden homelessness, cars, or unsafe arrangements. They called for flexible, comprehensive federal programs that address violence, mental health, and housing together, and for affordable, single-sex permanent housing outside the private market.
Jasmine De Fina stated that survivors of human trafficking cannot access appropriate shelter spaces, as most violence-against-women shelters are not designed for trafficking's complexity and can increase safety risks. She said Canada has fewer than 10 dedicated long-term trafficking recovery programs, and that healing takes years, not 30 to 90 days. She recommended a staged continuum of care from emergency stabilization to long-term affordable housing, national minimum standards for anti-trafficking responses, and stable multi-year funding, noting that investing in recovery reduces costs in health, justice, and child welfare.
Procedural matters were not debated, and no motions or votes occurred during this meeting.
AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.