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By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

$70K TO RED DEER SHELTER

Alberta rolls out additional one-time payment for women’s shelters

Feb 14, 2025 | 12:57 PM

The Central Alberta Women’s Emergency Shelter (CAWES) is set to receive a one-time infusion of $70,166 from the provincial government, which announced an additional $3 million to be distributed to shelters across the province this year.

The Feb. 11 announcement says Alberta is investing $15.7 million during 2024-25 to help prevent gender-based violence and support survivors, including $7.2 million to Children and Family Services and $3 million to shelter resources.

The funding is part of a $54 million bilateral agreement with the federal government.

“All vulnerable Albertans deserve to live free from family violence and domestic abuse. By investing a portion of the funding towards women’s shelters, Alberta’s government remains steadfast in its commitment to increase funding by $10 million over four years to ensure that survivors are protected and supported,” commented Searle Turton, minister of children and family services.

Danica Hoffart, Executive Director of CAWES, said this means shelters are receiving the equivalent of 3.5 per cent of their operating funding as a one-time, lump sum payment for the fiscal year.

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“The one-time lump sum payment, while it does help us pay some bills, it doesn’t allow us to do any long term planning because that money may not come the following year,” she said. “We can just pay a handful of bills with that.”

While the provincial budget isn’t expected to be announced in full until Feb. 27, Hoffart said the ministry has confirmed that CAWES will receive base funding of $1,988,321 for the 2025-26 fiscal year. She added that that number hasn’t increased since 2015.

Continually mounting financial pressures have made it difficult for the shelter to keep up; Hoffart said this one-time cash infusion will go to whatever need is most pressing, which will likely be insurance and utilities.

“That’s what we’re fundraising for; we’re fundraising to meet our basic needs, so that will be allocated to just keeping our building running” she explained.

These financial challenges also mean CAWES has been unable to open its additional 10 emergency shelter beds or 17 units of second stage shelter it now has available in its new home, which it moved into in the fall of 2024.

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Related:

• Central Alberta women’s shelter struggles with capacity amidst high domestic violence rates
• Red Deer women’s shelter to build new facility with $30 million federal investment

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“While we’re grateful for any additional funds, if we as Albertans really want to make a difference in reducing domestic violence and creating safer communities, we need to adequately fund shelters to be able to offer spaces for women who are fleeing dangerous situations,” said Hoffart. “To not adequately fund them puts additional financial burden on not-for-profits and their staff.”

As Hoffart addressed, shelter employees are feeling the impact as well, continuing to do “difficult, heartbreaking work,” she said, without wage increases to keep up with the cost of living.

rdnewsNOW reached out to the Ministry of Children and Family Services for a response to these funding concerns.

“We continue to work with our shelter partners on transforming the women shelter sector into one that works cohesively together to address the needs of survivors across the province,” said Daniel Verrier, press secretary for the ministry. “This includes finding ways to build capacity through strategic growth planning and appropriate budgetary processes to ensure areas of greatest need are prioritized.”

He reiterated that Alberta is committed to ensuring those fleeing domestic violence have a safe place to turn, as well as reducing and ending cycles of abuse to prevent violence before it happens.

Verrier added that Alberta contributes nearly $57 million annually in operational funding to women’s shelters across the province, and is delivering on a commitment to provide another $10 million, which this round of payments falls under. He said this is in addition to more than $100 million annually allocated to programs and services that work to support survivors.

The initial announcement also says the government is actively developing a 10-year strategy to end gender-based violence and this funding is intended to help in the meantime.