[IPSM] CBC: Vancouver shelter for aboriginal women faces closure

[aaron at resist.ca]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/01/29/bc-lodge.html

Vancouver shelter for aboriginal women faces closure

Last Updated: Monday, January 29, 2007 | 7:48 AM PT

CBC News
A Vancouver drug and alcohol recovery house for aboriginal women from the
Downtown Eastside could soon be closed because its funding is being cut by
the federal government.

The grant money for the Young Wolf Lodge will stop at the end of March,
and there has been no word on replacement funding, says a spokesman for
the group that operates the facility.

The shelter in a Vancouver house helps young women get off the streets and
clean up their lives.

Bob Manning of the Urban Native Youth Association told CBC News that the
Vancouver facility is only one of hundreds of other shelters across Canada
in the same predicament.

He said that despite a promise last year of more money, the Conservative
government has delayed implementing a replacement program, which means
shelter operators don't know if or when they would be able to apply for
new grants.

Manning said shelters will have to write proposals for new funding once a
new program is introduced, but in the meantime, there will be a funding
gap that may kill some programs.


"And some programs, I don't know if we will be able to economically
weather that delay and to be able to reopen again. That's going to be the
hard part."

Will it harm women on the streets?

Manning says that for women hoping to escape life on the streets, the
results could be tragic.

"A lot of people will be on the streets again. And that's scary because it
puts them again in harm's way of predators that could be on the streets."

Mercedes Demkiw, who lives at the Young Wolf Lodge, said the prospect of
the home being closed is frightening.

"You know this program saved my life. I probably would be dead without it.
This is our safe place to go. To think that we might not have that, it's
devastating."

The Greater Vancouver Regional District warned last week that 23 social
programs are at risk across the Lower Mainland because of the funding cut.
It added there has been no clarification from the federal government on
how the groups will be able to apply for new money.