Bruised but still standing, Harmony House battles on for abused women
No poll or survey ever really measures indifference, which is a shame.
As event organizers prepare to mark the 15th anniversary tomorrow of the Universite de Montreal massacre, it would be interesting to get a fix on how many people still care.
Fifteen years ago, when the horror was fresh, everybody cared. As an issue, violence against women was picked over and analysed and denounced endlessly. Men and women, both, tried to figure out psychology, circumstance and the cultural persuasions that made victims of some women and victimizers of some men. The topic engaged as much as it often polarized.
These days, violence against women is no longer a hot issue -- and not because the world has become a better, safer place. It's no longer a hot issue because it's been around so long. Because it's become tedious, the same old tragedies up against the same old absence of solutions. Because sensitive people can only keep beating their heads against brick walls for so long before indifference becomes preferable.
These days, talk about female victims of violence usually earns one of three responses: deep concern (this, from that slim minority of people who recognize the problem and still want to address it); hostility (this, from that slim minority who consider the whole thing a male-bashing feminist fabrication); and helpless indifference (this, from everyone else). The victims of violence against women are like the poor, whom Scripture dooms to being always with us. It's sad. You feel bad. Whaddya gonna do?
Here's one thing you can do. Look again, this time with fresh eyes.
Look again at a problem that not only hasn't gone away, it's gotten worse. Look at victims not as statistics but as real mothers, daughters and sisters with real hopes and terrible fears. Look at the places that deal with these real people.
Ottawa's Harmony House would be a fine place to start.
The city's only "second-stage" shelter -- based here, but really designated to serve all of Eastern Ontario -- Harmony House takes women after their initial crisis stage, when they've fled the violence, and helps them onto their feet. The 18-year-old program does this through counselling and classes, connections with vital community services, a food bank, child care, emotional support.
And they do it through the modest living accommodations they offer, small apartments where the women and their children can be safe from the fists, boots and weapons that have driven them from their homes. The spartan apartments have phones with small screens showing who's at the door of the securely locked units, and panic buttons to summon police in no time flat.
They need them, says executive director Dawn Blakley. Violent ex-partners have been known to track down their former victims at Harmony House. When that happens, the woman's security has been compromised, and she must be transferred elsewhere. Fast.
It's not easy being Harmony House's executive director, and security issues are just the tip of the iceberg. You want to hear other horror stories, ask Blakley about money.
"We've been struggling for eight years to maintain this program because we so believe in it -- and now we feel as if we've just been shot out of the water."
Blakley is referring to a sudden and unanticipated policy shift by the McGuinty government, one with a disastrous ripple effect. Last spring, the premier's office announced a restoration of funding to the province's 27 second-stage shelters, like Harmony House, that had been cut off by the previous Conservative government. At least, that's what the McGuinty announcement sounded like, talking of "$3.5 million for second-stage housing supports for women and children escaping abusive relationships."
Shelter workers weren't dancing in the streets, but they were pleased. Finally, a ray of sunshine over a dreary landscape. Then, a month ago, Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello dropped a bombshell. The $3.5 million would not go to second-stage shelters after all. It would go to "transitional support," to be spread around various community services to help more women in more ways.
"Now there's no core funding at all -- again," says Blakley. "This was our hope and now it's gone." Worse, because of the announcement last spring, many of Harmony House's supporters assumed the dark days were over, and donations fell off -- by 70 per cent. "It makes me so angry," she says of the government's about-face.
For someone with such a fancy title, Harmony House's executive director does not work in the lap of luxury. Her tiny office is up a couple of flights in a house that has seen better days. She shares her office with a part-timer and the top floor with a small, well-lived-in children's playroom. The furniture is old and the computer equipment aging. There's barely enough room to accommodate all the papers, files and a pencil-holding mug inscribed with the words, "Lord, help me hang in there."
These days, that is pretty much Harmony House's cri du coeur.
Since 1999, according to a report by the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, shelters in the province have seen marked increases in the numbers of women served, the length of their stays and the costs of things like energy and insurance.
At Harmony House, the situation is bare-bones and dire. They've cut staff to two full-time persons, they're in a deep deficit situation and they must rely utterly on the kindness of strangers. "We pretty much have to beg for everything," Blakley says. "We run solely on donations, fundraising and community partnerships."
Recent meetings with Pupatello have done little to raise spirits. Ministerial comments about how shelters should do more fundraising suggest that her government is heading toward -- well, the dismal status quo. When she talks about low percentages of women who use shelters, Blakley interprets that as groundwork for justifying a lack of funding.
"It's very scary," she says. As it is, Harmony House has waiting lists and turns away people regularly.
In Ontario, according to the Assaulted Women's Helpline, 40 women and children on average are murdered each year. As well, a woman is injured every minute of every day.
Without second-stage shelters like Harmony House, the abuse continues and often escalates. It's known that a significant number of the women who have fled violence often return to it when they find themselves trapped in poverty and hopelessness. At least, they reason, their kids will have a roof over their heads and food on the table. It is depressing and wrong and tragic.
Like a small and glimmering miracle against bleak odds, a place like Harmony House restores bruised lives and offers women escape from that fatal hopelessness.
Fifteen years after Marc Lepine turned Dec. 6 into a day of dutiful remembrance, that should be enough to rattle anyone's tired indifference.
- - -
Harmony House can use donations of goods, money or volunteer time. For more information, go to www.harmonyhousews.com
- - -
Janice Kennedy's column appears weekly. Contact her at jkennedy@thecitizen.canwest.com
Ran with sidebars "Maggie's story" and "Getting a life - at19" on page C2.
Reprinted from the Ottawa Citizen