In Canada there is no such housing allowance than what we have in Finland. The Finnish housing allowance makes it possible that basically, everybody can live wherever they want and get allowance for the rent. On the contrary, in Canada there is only the possibility of subsidized housing if you are not able to pay the full rent, and the housing is located in the different parts of the city, sometimes in not so good neighborhoods. The waiting time into subsidized housing may be extremely long especially, from the Finnish point of view since in Finland you usually get housing in a year or faster even without any kind of priority status. For my interviewees it had taken from one month to ten years to get housing. Becky, Edie and Francine have stayed in a shelter waiting for subsidized housing and they had got help from the workers. Francine had waited only a month, Edie had waited for two months, which she thinks, was because she has so many children, and Becky waited for five months. However, Francine complained about the bad behavior of the workers in the housing office.
Francine: Sometimes I call...I call for the...I call for the [name of the province] housing, right. I have in my...for example I have a leaking in my sink but I call to them but my English is not very good and then I think that they don’t understand what I’m saying and they mark at me for...they don’t mark at me but they [unclear word] at me saying: ”What, what, what happened?” They talk louder then, right. It’s not nice I think so. But some, not all of them.
Carol said that she had problems getting housing because she did not have a reference from her previous landlord since she had just arrived in the country. Even though she is a citizen it took her four months to find a private apartment, and until then she had to live with her brother. Carol described how she had to cry to people in order to rent an apartment. For Abbey it took ten years to get subsidized housing, and she had to stay at her daughter’s house after she separated from her husband. Then her daughter moved to another city and Abbey told me that she had to go and cry and do many other things before she got housing. Debbie has never had any problems with housing except that now when she is a care-taker of the building in which she lives the owners treat her in a very racist way, and they have been trying to make her leave.
All the workers had strong opinions concerning housing. They all saw the housing situation quite bad and the waiting times too long. According to Sarah, housing is the problem number one for the women and it can be crazy. Sometimes it is even more difficult to help the women because all they want to talk about is the housing even though they may have other deep problems as well. Sarah thinks that it is understandable because how are you supposed to settle and work through other issues if you do not have a home. Fortunately, many of the abused women get the priority status if a worker writes her a reference letter stating that she is fleeing abuse. Without the reference letter it might take eight to nine years to get housing but with the letter it usually takes two or three months, sometimes just couple weeks if the situation is really life-threatening. It makes the process slower if the woman wants to live in some particular areas of the city and refuses to apply for all the areas.
Often, the woman may get housing faster is she has children. On Valerie’s experience it takes from three to six months to get housing, sometimes even a year even though the woman may be in a high risk abusive situation. However, if the partner has left already, or the woman is staying with a relative or a friend so that her safety is not in an immediate risk, then the woman goes under the regular application system and it may take two to four years to get housing. If the woman is staying in the shelter then the process is the fastest possible because they also need to make room for others in the shelter. Of course, subsidized housing is only for those who are low-income. The rent goes up if your income goes up and sometimes people may end up paying high rent for low-rental housing.
Valerie said that there is not enough housing and some of the housing homes are infested with 56
cockroaches, pucks and mice. As well as there may be electronical or plumbing problems. Valerie explained that the government housing is usually situated in certain areas, and it feels like segregation since many social problems are also centered in those areas.
Valerie: And then you are low-rental, we call it low-rental housing, you know, so I feel it’s almost like segregation, you know...you know...and I think for some families they are shamed to tell people where they live because people know that ”Oh, oh, well ok, you live there”. Yeah, and right away they would know and I think even for the children...the children growing up, you know, government housing...it can be difficult for them too because, you know, maybe they can be taunted by other kids, yeah. I think they should be scattered like, you know, and blend in with the rest of the homes. And I think it would cut down a lot of gang activity, a lot of...a lot of things, a lot of problem...the word I cannot think today...a lot of vandalism.
Valerie said that quite often the women are offered housing from the far away part of the city which is widely know as a bad area, which is also the reason why there apartments become available quicker than elsewhere. Valerie thinks that it can put a woman in a difficult position if she refuses to take an offer from that part of the city.
Valerie: A lot of women don’t want to go to live in the [name of the area]. Yeah, because that’s...it’s commonly known as...you know, the bad area and not as some wonderful, beautiful people that live in the [name of the area] and I think it’s wrong but it’s just the stigma that it’s [unclear word] [name of the area] and a lot of women don’t want to live in the [name of the area], you know, that where most of the rapes, the killings, the shootings, the stabbings, the drugs, you know, and so they don’t want to live in the [name of the area].
But that’s where most of the houses with [name of the housing office] become available much quicker, yeah. So they would offer: ”Well, we have but if you are in high risk, you know, and you are in a need of housing then we have this house for you but now you are telling me you don’t want this house. So you can’t be in such a high risk situation if you say....” Yeah, you see what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Very political.
Valerie continued telling that women are given only three offers and if they refuse them all then they will end up at the bottom of the list. Rachel and Teresa emphasized that many times the women are not aware that there are such things as subsidized housing or shelters, as well as, they do not know that they can get the priority status if they apply for housing. Before the woman meets with the agency worker she may have been thinking that she has no other options than just stay with the abuser, and because of that some woman just stay and try to bear the violence. Therefore, the knowledge of other options is critical when women consider leaving the abuser. Yasmin explained that altogether there is shortage of housing because they are not building as many housing complexes as they are taking new immigrants. According to Yasmin it is a big problem if you do not have references stating that you will pay the rent from your previous landlord because then you
will have difficulties getting private housing. The language can be an obstacle too because the potential landlord will not look for an interpreter, you have to do it yourself. Also if the woman is not working then she will be unable to pay the rent. Yasmin thinks that sometimes it is just pure racism if people do not want to rent an apartment to you.