This voluntary, free service is available to women and their children, who have experienced abuse. Its goal is to assist women as they work to create independent lives free from violence.
A key focus of this program is assisting women in finding suitable housing. Transitional Housing Support Workers can help make this happen through assisting clients in completing housing applications, transportation to view housing and direct contact with landlords. However, finding housing is just a piece of the Transitional puzzle. This program takes it one step further by helping women maintain their housing. Our services continue to be available after a woman is housed in order to ensure that women have support, guidance, and advocacy as they transition into their new homes and new lives. Some additional services Transitional Housing Support Programs offer are:
*** While the Transitional Housing Support Worker Program prioritizes the needs of women fleeing relationship violence, this program is available to women and children in housing crisis. Bilingual services are also available. ***
Abuse is any attempt to gain power or control over another person using emotional, physical or sexual tactics. Abuse is when there is a pattern of one person trying to gain power and/or control over another – trying to gain power and control over how that other person thinks, feels, acts, sees themselves and the world around them. One of the most recognizable forms of abuse is physical as physical violence may leave marks and people can easily identify and see its impacts. Physical violence is more ‘in your face’. Physical abuse is any action that physically hurts or threatens to hurt someone, including sexual assault. There are many ways of having power and control over someone and they may be less easy to recognize as they may start out as or be more subtle. Instead of using physical abuse or sexual violence, many abusers may use verbal, financial, spiritual, psychological or emotional forms of power and control over the other person.
Abuse ripples out into all aspects of a woman’s life. Something to consider as a landlord; many women who approach you wanting to rent an apartment may have poor or limited references. Women fleeing abuse may have experienced financial control that has directly impacted on their credit history. Transitional Housing Support Workers are there to assist women through referrals and support to help ensure that payment of rent is not an issue.
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