Street Haven’s multi-storied blue-accented Victorian home, tucked in a quiet street in Toronto, is crowded with participants before their annual Walking Home Walkathon. Local MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam is chatting with executive director Siu Mee Cheng before they both address the crowd. People have spoken glowingly of Wong-Tam’s energy, how they’re great at riling up a crowd to action. Wong-Tam didn’t disappoint as they addressed the lack of housing in Toronto and why it’s worse for women. “The impact of poverty and homelessness on women is very violent. And it is difficult to get out,” said Wong-Tam.

 

The early morning weekend event is meant to raise funds for Street Haven, a local women’s shelter that is at a crossroads. Celebrating their 60th anniversary this year, Street Haven has faced many evolving social challenges throughout the decades, but is facing some of its worst challenges due to the pandemic and contentious political policies.

 

 

 

 

Toronto’s Mother Teresa

 

Peggy Ann Walpole was working as a registered nurse when she noticed that after being discharged from institutional care, many women had nowhere to go. In 1965, Walpole left her position and used her own money to open a drop-in centre called ‘Street Haven at the Crossroads’ in the beverage room of the Atalanta Hotel. But she soon realized she needed a permanent place to give the women a bed to sleep in, and a place that could support them. 

 

Walpole purchased the aforementioned Victorian home on 87 Pembroke Street, which opened its doors on September 17, 1969. Supportive housing caseworker Fatima Verdasca said she started her placement there when she was a student and noticed Walpole was a hard worker, arriving at eight in the morning and leaving after eight in the evening. Walpole emphasized seeing the women they served first as individuals rather than clients. “I think she was very understanding of life itself and the pain that people go through,” said Verdasca.

 

When Walpole passed away in 2006, the Toronto Star obituary on her life characterized her as Toronto’s Mother Teresa. She received many awards for her work and even got a chance to take a picture with Mother Teresa herself. It’s a picture that Verdasca still keeps a copy of in her office space, located in one of the expanded locations of Street Haven.

 

They now serve a variety of women through more facilities and resources, including women experiencing addictions and/or mental illness , refugees, and women who are justice-involved. Its main location is geared toward getting women into independent living as soon as possible, which means wraparound services like housing support, employment training, and, for newcomers, support completing immigration documentation.

 

 

“Because the province is going through this big transformation, there’s insecurity about how we’re going to deliver full employment supports.” – Cynthia Lewis, director of training services, Street Haven

 

 

Programs at Stake

 

Street Haven has a variety of programs meant to cater to the needs of women facing houselessness. Cynthia Lewis, director of training services, is a matter-of-fact force of nature, with a lion’s mane of curly hair, bustling through the centre to showcase all the resources the home offers. Lewis oversees many programs and laments the ending of Pathways to Employment, a pre-employment support program helping women with their resumes, interviews, and computer skills. Lewis said newcomer and refugee women were more often enrolled in the program, coming to class early and eager to learn.

 

“Particularly with our current women, it’s been so valuable to them. But because the province is going through this big transformation, there’s insecurity about how we’re going to deliver full employment supports,” said Lewis. Pathways to Employment is having its final cohort this spring because funding for the program is shifting from the City of Toronto to the provincial government. Lewis has had to file a new request for funding, and it’s a constant struggle for charitable organizations like Street Haven who do not receive any base funding.

 

Despite the challenges Lewis faces, she’s successfully secured funding for many other programs, including a literacy and basic skills program, a seniors social group combating social isolation in the Regent Park community, and Pathways to Independence which supports women for one year to maintain housing stability with the support of two dedicated outreach case workers. They also self-fund a Successful Housing program, comprising eight workshops designed to teach women their rights and responsibilities as tenants.

 

Looking to the future, Lewis said Street Haven is developing a new systemic change program that looks at inclusion of women in the workplace.

 

 

 

 

Helping Women Heal

 

Tucked next to Street Haven is Joubert House, another shelter run by the same collective of workers. On a Monday morning during a tour of the site led by Verdasca, residents meet with staff in the basement’s media room to play a quiet game of Bingo while another resident walks next door to Street Haven for breakfast.

 

 

“When you support and help the women to sustain housing they eventually will… I will not say completely heal, but their lives will turn into something better.” – Fatima Verdasca, supportive housing caseworker, Street Haven

 

 

Joubert House has about six clients during the start of the year, but usually houses about 30 women in all three locations, one of which is situated in Pembroke while the other is uptown on St. Clair Avenue. Verdasca said Walpole’s vision was that women with greater personal challenges could start off at Joubert House, potentially move on to the other Pembroke location when they’re ready to, and retire to their last location on St. Clair. These spaces were designed for women who may be dependent on social support throughout their lives, accounting for every stage—from youth to adulthood to their senior years—where they can also access additional services such as palliative care. The developments are part of Street Haven’s constant consideration in supporting women in every facet of their experience, known in the shelter industry as wraparound services.

 

“When you support and help the women to sustain housing they eventually will… I will not say completely heal, but their lives will turn into something better,” said Verdasca. In her characteristic contemplative, soft-spoken nature with shoulder-length mousy brown hair with bangs and navy blue cat-eye glasses, Verdasca reminisced fondly of her time helping clients. A lot of the women she’s worked with experienced levels of abuse, mental health challenges, and chronic houslessness. They were also well-educated, talented, and kind-hearted. She said Joubert House operates much like a group home, with residents discussing grocery shopping duties, their summer barbecue plans, scheduled programming and sometimes contentious items like preferred mode of transportation. “They want me to call a taxi,” she said. “Street Haven will not pay for a taxi!”

 

 

A ‘silent battle’ and ‘public emergency’

 

In 2022, Canada received 431,645 new permanent residents in an attempt to economically recover from the pandemic. It is the highest record in Canadian history of newcomers arriving in a year. Cities have had little time to catch up to provide adequate shelter, housing, and wraparound supports to accommodate their arrival. That’s why Toronto leased out numerous hotels in the city, including St. James Hotel for women that they tasked Street Haven to support. 

 

 

They’ve turned away more women than they’ve served these past few years.

 

 

With a jovial perma-smile and maternal energy, Grace Kolawole, director of shelter and housing services, oversees the hotel site for more than 45 clients. Ever-encouraging and welcoming in her chunky-framed candy-coloured glasses, Kolawole is serious about the issues at hand. She said they’ve turned away more women than they’ve served these past few years, calling it a “silent battle” and “public emergency.” 

 

“Women have been turned away daily back to their abusers. Turned away daily back to the streets. Turned away daily back to the tents. Been exposed to sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and there’s no resources available for women,” said Kolawole. She said many women face a spectrum of traumatic experiences, including refugees who leave due to danger or violence. 

 

 

 

 

Former resident Samreen Sohail is petite and solemn, with a flow of raven-black hair. She spent about nine months at Street Haven after coming to Canada in 2022 after facing political persecution in Pakistan for being outspoken in her role at a human rights organization. Despite the challenges of this contentious move, Sohail—now hopeful about bringing her family to Canada after her permanent residence application was approved—said Street Haven was a real bright light in her journey that treated her like “their own child.” “Whatever you need, they provide for you,” she said. “Even the tiny things, they can give you.”

 

Executive director Cheng said they’ve never seen such drastic numbers of houselessness in all the 60 years they’ve been in operation, and the majority of residents in their hotel and central space have tended to be refugee women the last few years.

 

 

These spaces were designed for women who may be dependent on social support throughout their lives, accounting for every stage—from youth to adulthood to their senior years—where they can also access additional services such as palliative care.

 

 

Proposed closure of safe consumption sites

 

In another quiet home on another quiet street lies another extension of Street Haven known as Grant House. It is a dedicated shelter for women experiencing substance use and dependency. Bianca Swan, intake and assessment case manager for addictions services, sat down to discuss the programs available at Grant House in a quiet room with a number of bright fluorescent gift bags to be gifted to participants. Grant House offers a maximum capacity of 13 residents at a time, but that has dwindled due to the pandemic and having to keep a safe distance. In recent years, they’ve only had eight women at a time.

 

They used to offer a six-month stay-in program, but it has since been reduced to three. It feels generous in comparison to other free services in the city, like Renascent Addiction Treatment Centre, which offers 28 days. Swan said sometimes women go from Grant House to Renascent, feeling it’s not enough time for recovery. “It’s a longer journey than three months, that’s for sure. It’s a very difficult journey too,” said Swan.

 

 

Siu Mee Cheng understands that women on the recovery journey are likely to relapse and safe consumption sites are a part of the necessary support for them to arrive at abstinence-based programming.

 

 

That’s why news of the impending closure of safe consumption sites (SCS) in the province rang alarm bells for Cheng. Last August, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced Ontario will be shutting down safe consumption sites that are within 200 metres of any school or daycare, causing 10 centres to be scheduled for closure in March, five of which are in the downtown core. Although Street Haven and all its centres are abstinence-based programs, Cheng understands that women on the recovery journey are likely to relapse and safe consumption sites are a part of the necessary support for them to arrive at abstinence-based programming. Addictions can often be mechanisms to cope with trauma or systemic violence, says Cheng, so shutting down services for addictions treatment can affect women more because of their experience with gender-based trauma.

 

“By the time a woman reaches us,” says Cheng, “Here’s what we see: very, very, very low levels of trust. Very isolated. And trauma, significant trauma dealing with life experiences related to their gender. And so those three things make them very, very uncomfortable if they should be in co-ed situations.”

 

Cheng hoped for a reversal of the provincial government’s plans to close SCSs in Ontario, a decision that a Toronto Public Health report anticipates will increase preventable overdoses and truncate the city’s ability to provide life-saving services. The Neighbourhood Group took legal action against the Ontario Care and Recovery Act, which replaces SCSs with Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs, a novel infrastructure that harm reduction workers, advocates, and users characterize as an ineffective alternative. 

 

Given the greater amount of funding the new legislation will provide, Cheng, along with other leaders in addiction services, have sent a letter to Jones citing the possibility for them to use the same amount of funding being offered to create new programs to build upon the existing model that has already been proven to be most effective and advantageous to recovery.

 

 

 

 

Celebrating 60 Years

 

At the end of their annual walkathon that landed participants at Riverdale Farm, Cheng is all smiles, in her fashion-forward blue peacoat and elegant cat-eye glasses, discussing upcoming plans to celebrate their 60th anniversary at the Art Gallery of Ontario on March 25.

 

Looking back on the progress the women’s shelter has made, Cheng discovered an unexpected new role for Street Haven: political activism. It is why MPP Wong-Tam’s presence at several Street Haven events has become commonplace. Wong-Tam was even awarded the distinction of Outstanding Community Impact by Street Haven. Cheng and Wong-Tam also collaborated for National Housing Day on November 20, preparing an entire day of events and activism at Queen’s Park. “We have to bring more government attention toward investments and more progressive policies to support women’s service agencies and marginalized women,” said Cheng.

 

In 2023, the City of Toronto unveiled a 10-year infrastructure plan to build up to 20 new shelters in the next 10 years to house around 80-100 people per building. Shelter service providers including Street Haven responded with their own 10-year infrastructure plan to meet the rising need the previous few years have presented, due to the rapid spike in global migration. Data on migration trends from the UN Refugee Agency last year suggests the number of refugees coming to Canada will exponentially rise with no expectation of a slow down in the next few years.  

 

Street Haven is also making more efforts to raise their own funds, including growing the walkathon. As Cheng sees it, Street Haven is not just Canada’s first women’s shelter, but a women’s multi-service program provider. They want to acquire more real estate on Pembroke to centralize services and evolve them to respond to the changing social climate, including trauma counselling and tripling their capacity to service more clients.

 

With concrete plans to build a “campus,” they want to evolve beyond just providing women the means to survive, but to live and thrive. Unveiling rough visuals of what a campus could look like, Cheng announced during their annual general meeting in October that they’ve already partnered with an architectural firm to make this vision come to fruition. Cheng is not at all shy about Safe Haven’s ambitions: “We want to be viewed as a centre of excellence.”

 

 

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