Record number of people in domestic violence situations turned away in 2023-24

A report on domestic violence in Alberta showed more than 31,000 people were turned away from women's shelters last year due to lack of space.

The demand for shelter services continues to rise across the province, according to a new report released by the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters (ACWS) on Monday.

“Domestic violence is an everyone problem, and it needs an everyone solution,” said Cat Champagne, the ACWS’ Executive Director.

“One in four Albertans is going to use shelter services, and of those individuals, many of them won’t be able to access shelter services,” she added.

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In 2023-24, the report shows more than 53,000 calls for help were answered by domestic violence and elder abuse shelters across the province.

During the same period, nearly 32,000 people who needed help were turned away because of lack of space, the highest number ever recorded in Alberta.

“I think we’re really in a perfect storm of circumstances right now,” said Miranda Pilipchuk, a research and evaluation coordinator at ACWS.

She attributes the growing demand for services on increasing population and long-term impacts of the pandemic.

“It created a lot of conditions that were very conducive to increasing numbers of domestic violence and made it much more difficult for people to reach out for help,” Pilipchuk said.

“So what we’re seeing now is essentially a wave of people who are reaching out for help who maybe couldn’t have done so before,” she added.

The 2023-24 Shelter Impact Report is the third Pilipchuk has worked on during her time at the ACWS.

What stood out to her is 40 per cent of the people unable to access a shelter are children – the highest rate in more than a decade.

“We often hear domestic violence shelter, we hear domestic violence and abuse, and we think adults, we think women, we think gender diverse people or adult survivors. We don’t often think about the kids,” said Pilipchuk.

“We’re seeing historic levels of children who can’t be sheltered, who need to come into shelter with their parents, and they just can’t because there isn’t enough space or enough resources and that’s absolutely devastating,” she said.

“Ninety-six per cent of shelters are working outside of their walls, so people think of shelters as brick and mortar, somewhere you go to escape domestic violence, but they’re working in their communities and you don’t even know it,” said Champagne.

“They’re doing outreach services, supporting individuals without even having them come into shelters” she added.

Another challenge for shelters is proper funding.

Pilipchuk said not enough investment has been made to maintain shelter services and keep up with the demand over the past decade.

“We have seen some very important movement in that direction, though, especially with the province, the Government of Alberta as Cat said made a big $19-million commitment to invest in domestic violence shelters,” she said.

There are ways the average Albertan can help too. The ACWS asks people to consider donating time or money to its organization or shelters in their communities.