Lisa Slaney helps run a shelter on the Burin Peninsula for women and children seeking refuge from abusive situations.
But she finds herself spending more and more time trying to find enough cash to keep the doors open at Grace Sparkes House in Marystown.
“We have been underfunded for many years, and that’s a story that’s straight across the board for all of our shelters in the province,” Slaney told CBC News.
“We have gone through five ministers and many, many years of trying to advocate for what we need.”
Slaney cites one example of how difficult she says it is to get money from the government.
Their unionized workers actually negotiate with the province, she says, not with the shelter.
According to Slaney, the government has granted increases to salaries and benefits, but hasn’t provided cash to shelters to pay that bigger bill.
Grace Sparkes House has missed payroll twice this year, and has been forced to scramble for emergency bailouts — financial stress that she says has impacted operations.
“You’re constantly calling the bank. How much money do we have left? What’s there? Do we close beds? Is that what we’re supposed to do? Are we not going to provide food?”
After years of privately lobbying the province, shelter operators are now issuing public pleas for financial help from the government.
In Happy Valley-Goose Bay, a similar story.
“Our number one concern at present is definitely the insufficient fees and funding that are coming from the province for transition houses,” said Alicia Neville, executive director of Libra House.
“And also very concerning, the length of time that this has been an ongoing issue — despite it being communicated with the department, and the ministers of the day, because there have been a few over the past few years. Our issue seems to be relatively unheard and unremedied.”
Neville says Libra House has staff working 24 hours a day, to provide an array of services.
N.L. women’s shelters face budget crunch, call for boost in government funding
Costs are rising, she says, but contributions from the province aren’t keeping pace.
“Our funding in the current fiscal year is just shy of enough to pay our salaries and benefits to our staff,” she said.
“So for us, that means that all of the other expenses are on the onus of Libra House. And that can be a tremendous burden.”
Neville says she is worried about the future.
“The province really needs to step up and start reaffirming its commitment to the shelter and to the women and children — the vulnerable women and children — that we’re trying to serve here.”
Operational funding for those shelters flows through the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation (NLHC).
In a statement to CBC News, NLHC said it provided $9.2 million in funding last year.
Documents prepared for a legislative committee in the spring show that number is unchanged for the current fiscal year.
In a statement, NLHC officials said they are aware that some transition houses have been operating in a deficit.
The housing corporation says it has provided, over the last three years, more than $1 million to help address deficits in operating budgets, including costs related to negotiated wage increases, statutory holiday pay and inflationary increases.
According to a past NLHC annual report, operational funding for shelters was $8.8 million five years ago.
Base funding for nearly a dozen shelters has essentially stayed flat since 2020.
The provincial government contribution has increased by less than five per cent, in total, over five years.
Over the same period, inflation ran at more than 20 per cent.
The umbrella group for shelters in the province says something has to give.
“Operational funding doesn’t go up, we still have to pay the staff what the government’s negotiated,” said Dan Meades, provincial coordinator for the Transition House Association of Newfoundland and Labrador.
“As a result, this year alone, four transition houses have been in a position of not being able to make payroll without having to call the government of Newfoundland and Labrador as an emergency and say, ‘What do you want us to do? Close beds for women and children fleeing violence or pay the staff what you’ve negotiated for them?’ “
Meades says they’ve had this conversation with five ministers in charge of housing over the last four years.
He believes the time for talk is over.
“It’s really basic — just pay us enough money to run transition houses or say publicly that you don’t want to house women and children fleeing violence. Those are the choices.”
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