Riley Spigarelli, executive director of the Bethesda House, an emergency women’s shelter in Bowmanville, supports women and children who are living in fear and violence.
Spigarelli, in the past year, has seen a rise in women returning back to their abusers.
She has watched women choose intimate partner violence (IPV) to avoid living without a roof over their head.
When these women and girls make the choice to leave their abusive home they arrive at the Bethesda House.
“I think that a lot of women think when they get there that it’s going to be easy to find somewhere to go after,” says Spigarelli. “And then they very quickly realize that no, it’s not.”
The Bethesda House has 18 ministry funded beds within a shared communal space. Last year the Bethesda House had to turn away 1,199 women because they didn’t have the capacity to care for them.
This means women are having to choose between braving the instability of the current housing crisis and going back to the house where their abuser lives.
The lack of affordable housing in Ontario has led to an increase in IPV in Ontario, as more and more women return home and pay the price with their life.
“And we know that if they return back, they’re at more risk and the violence escalates,” says Spigarelli.
Between 2011 and 2021, 87 per cent gender-related homicides of women and girls occurred at a residential location, according to Statistics Canada.
“The better the data, the better the evidence,” said Emmanuel Dowuona, director of policy and government relations at the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (OFIFC).
“Where we lack data, while it may be like an incredibly important challenge, it’s often hard to get that thing off the ground and moving.”
Collecting data has become a huge barrier for implementing IPV protections in Canada as gender-based killings are not legally defined.
The Canadian Criminal Code does not use the terms ‘femicide’ to establish gender-based murders, instead referring to them as ‘homicides.’ This action removes that acknowledgement that these incidents specifically target female identifying individuals.
A 2021-2022 report by the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH) defined femicide as the killing in which cisgender men have been charged or deemed responsible in the death of a women, child or gender-diverse individual.
To collect data for femicides properly, Canada must first recognize femicide as a distinct crime.
“We now provincially and federally prioritize seeing outcomes, data, metrics, data to really help determine their next moves when it comes to decision making,” says Dowuona. “We are then forced to really kind of take stock and how does our data stack up to where we think the government would be looking for.”
According to Statistics Canada, the homicide rate for Indigenous women and girls is over six times higher than non-Indigenous women.
While only five per cent of the female population in Canada identify as Indigenous, from 2011 to 2021 police reported that 21 per cent of all gender-related homicides involved Indigenous women and girls, amounting to a known number of 233 victims.
The true number of Indigenous victims of gender-related homicides is underrepresented in the stats published by Statistics Canada. Due to the number of missing Indigenous women and girls who have died under suspicious circumstance or whose homicide remains unsolved, the number could be much greater.
While many different factors contribute to these disproportionate figures, systemic and structural barriers that hinder the ability to seek culturally safe supports is high on that list.
One of those supports is Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin, also known as ‘I am a Kind Man’ a service which engages Indigenous men to action to end violence against Indigenous women.
Prairie Young-Brown, the senior program advisor for Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women at the OFIFC, says “Culture is the foundation of all of our programs. Culture acts both as a protective factor, but also a healthy coping mechanism for individuals to return to when experiencing distressing moments.”
The OFIFC is a place for urban Indigenous peoples to gather and access culturally based supports.
“What I love about Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin is that all the program coordinators approach each client with love and respect. A lot of the clients, unfortunately, have perpetrated some form of violence and some type of harm against either their community or against loved ones,” says Young-Brown.
“Our men and boys are hurting, so they need to be retaught and reconnected to their culture to ensure that the cycles of violence are stopped.”
“They were lost, and throughout their 12-week journey, they, with the tools of the seven grandfather teachings realized that the actions that they perpetrated against their loved one or their community was not accepted and was never okay,” says Young-Brown.
One of the greatest barriers to protecting victims of IPV, acknowledged by both by the OFIFC and the Bethesda House, is a lack of affordable housing.
The OFIFC looks at social supportive housing for both long and short-term situations, working directly with services like the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Association (OAHA) to ensure that affordable infrastructure is being built.
The OFIFC is currently running a pilot project called Urban Indigenous Homework Bound Program (UIHB).
Dowuona said beyond data what is needed are “unique” programs, such as this one that supports single Indigenous mother who are often fleeing IPV. The women are given housing and introduced to a four-year college program.
At the Bethesda House, Spigarelli wants to be create transitional solution for women coming into the shelter.
“It’s very hard if you are financially reliant on your abuser, and then you leave and come to shelter within three months to be able to set yourself up to afford the crazy rent that we have in our society right now,” says Spigarelli.
In August, Premier Doug Ford announced he would be putting 1.6 billion dollars toward Ontario’s Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program.
This funding is part of the provincial governments plan to build 1.5 million homes by 2031 focusing on single-dwelling homes and townhouses.
“The government is coming out with all this new housing, but it’s all houses that you have to buy. And who can afford to buy those?” says Spigarelli. “Definitely not anyone that we’re supporting.”
The Provincial Government of Ontario is currently debating a bill—Bill 55— that would see IPV declared an epidemic.
A similar bill—Bill 173— was put forth in 2024 but was shut down by Premier Doug Ford’s government.
“I think for the Ontario government to declare an epidemic would be saying and showing solidarity and support for survivors across the province,” says Spigarelli.