By Bobbi-Sue Menard

THE KELOWNA Women’s Shelter (KWS) has purchased a new home, in order to provide long-term transitional housing for women in need of shelter and support.  

Working quickly, shelter officials purchased a home neighbouring the current shelter, when the owners offered to sell the building to them. The new home represents a long standing dream for KWS: to provide their residents a safe place to live, once they have completed their maximum short term stay in the current facility.

The purchase of the home represents a huge planning and financial hurdle for the Kelowna Women’s Shelter. Once the deal was settled, they immediately launched a fundraising campaign to pay for the home – and much needed supplies to operate the facility. The Kelowna Women’s Shelter is a secular agency – yet the call went out to many community groups, including churches in Kelowna.  

Laura Banman is the manager of programs and staffing for the shelter. She is looking forward to support from the community to make the long term transition home a success.

“Obviously,” she told BCCN, “this wasn’t planned in the upcoming budget year.  Community support is wonderful.”

KWS personnel are excited about reaching out to all sectors of the community, including the churches. Banman is grateful for all contributions, and the Women’s Shelter is working to build relationships with all community groups.

“We are very happy to be working with faith-based groups.  We work hard to be accepting of people, whatever their background – and to respect people’s beliefs.”

Candace Giesbrecht, women’s pastor at Trinity Baptist Church, worked with the Kelowna Women’s Shelter for a time as a social worker before joining the staff at Trinity; she received the call for donations and help in the Christmas 2007 newsletter from the Kelowna Women’s Shelter.  

The Women’s Ministry within the church had been looking for an outreach project to connect with the Kelowna community, and provide an opportunity for women at the church to have a positive impact on the community.  

The opportunity seemed to be an answer to prayer. The Shelter email requesting help landed in Giesbrecht’s inbox a week after meetings with Willow Park Church, discussing new directions and community outreach initiatives within the two churches.  

For this spring, Trinity Baptist and Willow Park are forgoing their traditional church-based spring events and are contributing to the start-up of the second stage housing project of the Women’s Shelter.  

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The contribution from Trinity is a weekly donation of household supplies and necessities; each week a different theme is chosen, and supplies are collected and donated.  

“There are supports in the community and in the churches that can help families who are struggling with [violence]; and as long as we are working in isolation, we are not serving families as well as we could be,” says Giesbrecht.

The goal is to move beyond the stocking of shelves in new homes, Giesbrecht explains.

“I am hoping stronger bridges will be built all around. In my experience, there is a perception among some workers at social service agencies that churches are ‘closed’ and stick their heads in the sand about violence against women in relationships.  

There are also perceptions among some church-goers that community agencies have nothing to offer unless they are overtly Christian.”

The donated supplies are meant to be part of a concerted effort to create a continuum of care for female victims of domestic violence. “When violence in a family is disclosed, there are a number of agencies that could be involved . . . and I believe strongly that working towards a coordinated response to families at a community level will serve them better in the long run.”

The donations have been coming for several weeks, and items so far have ranged from linens and paper towels, to plastic bags of every variety – with more themes to come over the coming weeks.  

The Kelowna Women’s Shelter has a use for every item that comes in, and any surplus supplies will be used to help women begin their own households again – or will be passed on to other agencies in need.

The new long-term transitional home will comfortably accommodate between four and six women at a time, based on the current zoning.  

The main clients of the home will be single women who are in need of safe, affordable and appropriate housing. These are people who would otherwise be homeless – or in far less than ideal, even dangerous situations – without the shelter.  

Many of the women will only have minimal welfare allowances to live on, as they reassemble the pieces of their lives. The transition shelter will create the space and structure for women to successfully move forward ,and help them safely move away from the abuse in their past.

There are ongoing discussions between the Kelowna Women’s Shelter and the two churches on further opportunities to work together.  

With the new building in need of renovations and ongoing support for its clients, there are sure to be many opportunities for churches to support their work.

March 2008