TL;DR

• Thank you for 500 signatures!
• YWKW shelter is officially closed. The Region has purchased the building, however the co-ed shelter on King Street will be moving into it.
• There are no updates on a new women's shelter.
• New article about this issue and our petition. 
• Thank you for continuing to share, and emailing regional council. Template and council's contact info in my last update.

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Thank you to everyone who has supported our cause so far. I'm excited to share that our petition has now gathered over 500 signatures. 

As June comes to an end, YWKW's shelter is officially closed. While the Region has purchased the building and will take ownership on July 1st, it's been announced that the co-ed shelter currently on King Street taking over the building.

This leaves us with the same problem.

Thank you to Justine Fraser at CityNews Kitchener for her coverage of this issue. Here is her most recent article.

While the article states that there are women's shelters in the region, it should be noted that these are the Women's Crisis Services' shelters and they are only for women leaving intimate partner violence.

There are still zero shelters for the women who don't qualify for their services: those experiencing financial hardship, eviction, substance use, family breakdown, release from institutions, etc.

Dr. Erin Dej's statements in the article are particularly moving, and lend extra weight to the injustice unhoused women face in our region:

• "As of tomorrow, Waterloo Region will run zero beds specially dedicated to women experiencing homelessness. And that is terrifying because what that means is women experiencing violence will be put in unsafe situations."
• "It shows a real system gap that we’ve had for decades: that we were relying on this single shelter to provide all services to all women and non-binary people in the region."

Please continue to share and email your representatives on regional council. I've provided a template and all the contact info you need in my last update!