With all beds occupied and wait lists common, Blooming House mulls expansion
This is 'the busiest we've ever been,' says co-founder of Charlottetown shelter
After years of being only two-thirds full on an average night, an overnight emergency shelter for women in Charlottetown is now packed most of the time, and usually has a waiting list for beds.
"We are very busy, the busiest we've ever been," said Liz Corney, who co-founded Blooming House with Brynn Devine in January 2019, and is the shelter's director of development.
"It is difficult to see the house so full," added Devine, who is the organization's executive director. "It's a shocking realization."
Devine and Corney said the huge demand for the eight beds at Blooming House in the last year was not something they had anticipated.
Women on the waiting list for a bed are connected to other housing support staff and placed at other shelters throughout the province.
Corney said women who do get one of the eight beds often stay much longer than one night.
The average length of stay is now a couple of months, but some women have stayed off and on for a couple of years.
Clients' ages range from 18 to 70-plus.
More complex issues
Some of the women seeking shelter just can't find an affordable place to live, but others come to Blooming House with complex issues far beyond just needing a place to sleep.
"The women coming through our doors are often seeking help in many areas of their life," said Corney. "We have women who are dealing with severe mental health issues and addictions in some cases as well."
She said the complexity of needs has increased significantly, along with the demand for a bed, and they would love to be able to offer more support.
In an ideal world, the co-founders of Blooming House said the emergency shelter would be for very short stays, "a stopgap" rather than a longer-term refuge. But sometimes women have to stay longer because they have nowhere else to go.
"There's really not a lot of options to transition them out to — not a lot of affordable housing, not a lot of safe, secure housing either," Corney said.
If that were to change, they would be glad to see the shelter numbers and waiting lists dwindle, given that the overall goal is to have fewer women experiencing homelessness.
Other locations, more services?
In the meantime, Blooming House's three-year plan does include expansion, either by opening other locations or adding more services to support women. For example, they are often asked why the shelter operates only 16 hours a day (from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m.) instead of 24 hours.
"People need more," said Corney. "We would love to expand and grow.
"The fact that we're not able to transition women out of shelter to something more supportive … I think that is a natural next step for us."
She added that there is no expansion in the organization's immediate future, however.
The shelter currently gets a third of its funding from grants from foundations and the federal government, another third from provincial funding, and the rest from community donations.
With expenses up and donations down slightly due to the rising cost of living, the shelter is always working to secure more funding, and has organized more fundraisers to keep the doors open.
"It is a daunting task," said Corney.
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