Ontario's Official Opposition Leader urged the provincial government to support programs helping victims of intimate partner violence (IPV).
NDP Leader Marit Stiles visited Hiatus House Thursday morning while on a tour of Windsor. Accompanied by staff from Hiatus House, representatives from the Welcome Centre for Women and Families, and Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky, Stiles toured the emergency shelter and hailed its plans to include transitional housing for those fleeing abusive and violent relationships.
Stiles has urged the provincial government to do more to curb IPV, starting with supporting agencies like Hiatus House, which often struggle to pay the bills and keep the doors open.
"This is hard and difficult work, but it's absolutely crucial, and people who work in organizations like these do it because they believe in it," said Stiles. "But, they also have to be able to feed their families. So we need the government to step up here and support people."
Windsor City Council and Essex County Council have joined dozens of others across Ontario in declaring IPV an epidemic. Gretzky said the government is having a hard time taking that step.
"The very first recommendation is for the government of Ontario to recognize that intimate partner violence is an epidemic. They outright rejected it on the semantics that their version of a definition of 'epidemic' is a spreadable disease, something like the flu, or a cold, or something like that," said Gretzky.
Stiles pointed out that the current housing crunch in Windsor and provincewide only complicates matters.
"It's hard to imagine someone uprooting their lives and then just have to find a place to go," said Stiles. "But with the housing crisis we're experiencing here in the City of Windsor and other parts of the province, it's impossible. It's absolutely impossible."
Hiatus House is considered an emergency shelter, which offers housing and support for affected women and children for up to eight weeks. The agency hopes to raise support to build a transitional housing facility nearby, to help more people flee dangerous situations with shelter for up to two years.
