The YW Kitchener-Waterloo says it is closing its emergency shelter property at 84 Frederick St. in downtown Kitchener and selling the property as it looks to redevelop the way it offers services to women in Waterloo Region.
The organization says it will use the money from the sale to open two or three smaller locations across the region to serve its clients better.
The YWKW is looking to close the shelter and have all of its clients transitioned to a new location by June 30.
Senior officials with the YWKW say the change is being made in part because the cost of maintaining the building was eating into money that could be better used to serve clients.
“That building is aging. Quite honestly, it’s taking a lot of capital support to keep it up and running, and it has outgrown its ability to serve the women we support,” YWKW CEO Jennifer Breaton told Global News.
She explained that the organization began to look for a new location last year while also continuing to reconsider how it serves the needs of women in the area
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Breaton said the YWKW looked at other new shelter models that opened in the area, such as the House of Friendship’s ShelterCare and the Working Centre’s Erb’s Road setup, and toured other facilities as it looks to develop a new setup for its shelters.
“I think the most important thing we’ve done is we’ve really listened to the clients that we serve and then, importantly, we’ve listened to the clients that we don’t serve,” she said. “So we’ve heard from women who don’t use our shelter that they don’t see themselves in this space.”
Breaton said that for a number of reasons, some women cannot consider a move into the shelter space on Frederick Street.
“We recognize from listening to staff that by trying to serve everyone in one large building, at times we actually aren’t serving anyone,” she said. “So we think that through the sale of 84 Frederick, we’re going to be able to come forth with a model that probably is two or three scattered sites, smaller, contained shelters, really designed on the needs of the women we serve.”
In a release, the YWKW said the new spaces “will be trauma-informed, culturally safe and rooted in evidence.” There will be spaces that will not allow for substance use and for vulnerable woman and their families.
These will be supported by multidisciplinary staff, which will offer options that the YWKW could not offer out of the current 66-bed facility.
There are 54 beds in use at the Frederick Street building, a number that fluctuates depending on a number of factors such as weather. The organization says it is working with partners in the community to ensure that everyone has somewhere to go before the facility closes its doors.
“I think we’re going to be looking at, short-term and long-term, options to support the current women we support,” Breaton explained.
It remains unclear how long it will take before the YWKW’s new shelters open up in the region.
“I think we can’t comment as a timeline at this point in time,” YW Kitchener-Waterloo board chair Karen Coviello said. “What I can tell you is nobody wants to get it up faster than the YW. We’ve been supporting vulnerable women, children and families in our region for 100 years.”
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