Residents want shelter re-opened
Facility closed since 2009 would likely need about $100,000 in renovations
Miranda Scotland
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 21, 2013
TALOYOAK/SPENCE BAY
Taloyoak's self-help group is calling for the women's shelter to be reopened in the community.
Students Luke Ukuktunnuaq, left, and Leanna Kootook clean up the shoreline at Sandy Point outside of Taloyoak in 2009, the same year that the women's shelter closed in the community. Residents are calling for the shelter to be re-opened. - photo courtesy of Mary Eetoolook |
The facility is needed to keep women safe and alive, said Mary Eetoolook, who brought the issue up during the Kitikmeot Inuit Association's recent annual general meeting in Cambridge Bay.
"Sometimes we don't know what's going to happen, we don't know what's going on at home, sometimes women get killed and sometimes children," said Eetoolook.
"If we can have support from someone we would like (the shelter) open because we don't want to constantly think about what's going to happen to the person. It's stressful ... We need a safe place for every person in each community."
Taloyoak's women's shelter was open for 21 years but closed in 2009 after the pipes in the building froze.
Former shelter co-ordinator, Arnaoyok Alookee, said she was told it would cost approximately $100,000 to fix the damage, which occurred on someone else's watch.
During its run the shelter had a budget of between $75,000 and $104,000 a year, which was provided by the Department of Social Services, according to Alookee.
The funds, she added, covered the cost of one full-time worker, five or six casual employees, power, fuel, water and sewage.
"If they open it again they would have to have two full-time workers because it's really, really hard to work alone in the shelter when a crisis is going on," said Alookee.
The building featured three bedrooms with two beds in each and women would typically be allowed to stay a maximum of two weeks.
Often they would bunk at the shelter until the situation with their spouse cooled off, said Alookee.
"It was a good place to take a rest and stay away from abuses," she added.
In Nunavut, police-reported rates of family violence are 12 times higher than the national average, according to a Statistics Canada survey done in 2011.
Chris Dickson, the senior administrative officer in Taloyoak, said the idea to bring back the shelter has been brought to hamlet council a number of times.
"It's been a need. Social services and the health centre have indicated it's a need here as well," said Dickson.
The hamlet doesn't have the finances to fund the project, he said, but it would support anyone who decided to take it on.
At the moment, if a woman is facing a crisis she will usually seek refuge at a loved one's house, said Eetoolook.
She can also get a referral to one of four family violence shelters in the territory - St. Michael's Crisis Shelter in Cambridge Bay, Qimavvik Shelter in Iqaluit, Kataujuq Society Shelter in Rankin Inlet and Women's Crisis Centre in Kugluktuk. In the past, women and children could be referred to the YWCA shelter in Yellowknife.
In fact, in 2011 women and children from Nunavut took up half the occupancy at the YWCA's Alison McAteer House in Yellowknife, the organization's executive director Lyda Fuller previously told reporters.
However, that changed a year and a half ago after the Northwest Territories expressed concerns about Nunavummiut taking beds from NWT residents.
The YWCA has not received a client from Nunavut this year, said Fuller.
If the shelter does get up and running in Taloyoak, Eetoolook said it should be a place to not only sleep and eat but a place to get counselling and attend classes on subjects such as parenting.
The self-help group is one way for women to receive assistance but it's not enough.
Eetoolook said participants in the group are coming up to her on the street, at home, anywhere she is because they need more help.
"If we don't have any programs right here in our own community it's going to keep on going. The same old thing is going to be going on all the time.
"We have so many people who need that help and they're willing to get help and willing to learn and once they learn something from there they are always trying to support other people."
