Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter

About Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter:

Founded in 1974, Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter (CWES) works to eliminate family violence and abuse. Calgary Police Service responds to about 19,000 domestic violence calls each year. Some of these callers are among the 14,387 people helped by CWES last year. A variety of programs involve individuals and families to help prevent, escape, or recover from abuse. These programs include emergency shelter, counselling, classes, and support through court procedures.

In F2017, 53% of program spending was allocated to the Emergency Shelter. This 50-bed facility houses women and children escaping abuse. People staying in the shelter receive food, clothing, counselling services, and support in finding suitable long-term housing. A nurse is available on site once a week. During the last year, the shelter housed 223 women and 312 children each for an average of 21 days. Based on shelter-specific spending reported, it costs $7.3k to house a person for their entire stay, or about $350 per person per day. In F2016, the shelter housed 238 women and 323 children for an average of 30 days. This cost per person housed was about $5.8k for the entire stay or $190 per day.

Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter allocated 22% of program spending to Community & Outreach Counselling. Over 90% of the people helped by CWES are served through community counselling. Counselors help women who are unable or choose not to enter the shelter. There are counselors designated to work with women identifying as Aboriginal and for women 50 and older.

The remaining 25% of program spending is split between the Healthy Relationships, Child and Adolescent, and Men’s Counselling programs. Children and youth attend classes on avoiding abuse, and men are coached to not be abusers. Children who have witnessed domestic abuse receive additional counselling.

Less than 1% of spending is used to operate a 24-hour counselling hotline and to coach abused women through court visits. These programs require minimal spending but help many people: the hotline received 11,998 calls last year and the court program helped 416 women.

Results and Impact: Of the 591 youth who participated in Healthy Relationships classes, 94% (556) reported having learned skills to help build healthy relationships. This rate increased from F2016 when 91% (493) of the 542 participants reported this learning. CWES also reported increased effectiveness of the 24-hour hotline with 99% (11,878) of the 11,998 callers saying the call had met their immediate needs compared with 87% (9,890) of the 11,368 callers in F2016. Of the women involved in the court program, 96% said they were better able to access the legal system to keep themselves and their children safe.

Financial Review:

Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter is medium-sized charity, with donations and special events revenues of $4.6m in F2017. Its administrative costs are 8% of revenues and its fundraising costs are 9% of donations. For every $1 donated to the charity, 83 cents go to programming, falling within Ci’s reasonable range. The charity’s funding reserves of $828k result in a program cost coverage ratio of 13%. This means that CWES could cover less than 2 months of programming with funding reserves, indicating a need for funding.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on May 31, 2017 by Madison Kerr.