{"id":19798,"date":"2018-02-08T11:54:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T16:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19798"},"modified":"2018-02-08T11:54:50","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T16:54:50","slug":"womens-shelter-re-opens-with-increased-space-and-increasing-outreach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/womens-shelter-re-opens-with-increased-space-and-increasing-outreach\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s shelter re-opens with increased space, and increasing outreach"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

They say if you build it, they will come.
\nOften that\u2019s seen as a plus \u2013 what you have to offer is in high demand, and it is a good indicator of success.
\nNot so for Sandgate Women\u2019s Shelter, which re-opened its Richmond Hill location on Tuesday after renovations to increase capacity and emergency beds for women and children fleeing violence and abuse.
\nAt an open house held at the location on Monday, staff introduced 14 new beds at the shelter that were funded last year by the Ministry of Community and Social Services, with additional support from the Home Depot Canada Foundation and the Elementary Teachers\u2019 Federation of Ontario both to address increasing need and create a more welcoming space for women and their children.
\nThat was the upside. The downside? Sandgate expected each of these new 14 beds to be fully occupied the very next day.
\n\u201cThere is always a need, unfortunately,\u201d says Nilda Patey, Interim Executive Director for Sandgate, which also operates a shelter in Jackson\u2019s Point. \u201cWe would love to eradicate homelessness and end violence and abuse against women, but understanding that will take much longer, Sandgate\u2019s role is really about lifting women and empowering women to be able to move forward in a place that is right for them.\u201d
\nThere is a need for specific support for specific segments of the female population, she says.
\nOne particular area needing specialized support, she says, are victims of human trafficking who come through Sandgate\u2019s doors with needs far more complex than the average. Another area of specific attention are women with developmental disabilities who, she says, are at a 65 per cent higher risk of abuse. There are also acute needs for Indigenous women, needs which Sandgate has identified first hand at their Jackson\u2019s Point location, which is a stone\u2019s throw from Georgina Island.
\n\u201cWith the Provincial election coming up, those are things that we will be putting forward in a letter to our politicians to say that, as the budget is being prepared, to please be mindful of very specific women\u2019s populations,\u201d says Ms. Patey. \u201cWe\u2019re always making sure that we have appropriate and relevant resources and we\u2019re always looking for dollars not only for direct services, but dollars to support the staff piece of keeping up with current trends and professional development.\u201d
\nSandgate is what Ms. Patey describes as a \u201csister organization\u201d to Yellow Brick House, a women\u2019s shelter based in Aurora with a further shelter in York Region\u2019s southern tier.
\nAs Ms. Patey gets a feel for her new role as Interim Executive Director, she says she has voiced her desire to partner and collaborate with Yellow Brick House wherever possible to \u201cmaximise\u201d their resources to strengthen a community.
\nOne particular area they have been discussing is their Let\u2019s Talk Program which provides support to young kids who have witnessed abuse.
\n\u201cChildren are very vulnerable, but we also understand they are very resilient,\u201d says Ms. Patey. \u201cBeing able to provide this appropriate support to young people when they are most vulnerable is something we both agree is necessary.\u201d
\nThroughout all this, the face of York Region is changing and, as the Region evolves, so too do the needs and challenges identified by organizations such as Southgate.
\nYork Region, she says, has a rapidly rising South Asian population which has different cultural and linguistic needs which can, in some cases, be a barrier to access. Their challenge is looking at ways to overcome these barriers and provide services in what she describes as \u201ca respectful and dignified manner.\u201d
\nThere is also a rising number of refugees in the community and these residents might come with little understanding of the system let alone the community, and that support is available for victims of abuse.
\n\u201cIt has become a significant need for our outreach team to fully engage someone who is a refugee or a newcomer to provide appropriate and relevant services. \u201cFirst and foremost, we are always looking for financial contributions because we understand to be sustainable we need to diversify our funding and be able to attract people into the Sandgate family and have people invest in our programming. We are doing everything we can to introduce a volunteer program so potential community members and employee groups can engage in activities that support the work that we\u2019re doing.
\n\u201cUnderstanding the issues related to violence and abuse against women and be able to speak about them in the community is important, sending a message that it is not going to be tolerated and we need to support women and do everything we can to have a safe community for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more on Sandgate \u2013 to find out how to get involved or learn more about the resources they provide \u2013 visit www.sandgate.ca or call 905-251-4126.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They say if you build it, they will come.
\nOften that\u2019s seen as a plus \u2013 what you have to offer is in high demand, and it is a good indicator of success.
\nNot so for Sandgate Women\u2019s Shelter, which re-opened its Richmond Hill location on Tuesday after renovations to increase capacity and emergency beds for women and children fleeing violence and abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-02-08-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-59k","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 15:11:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}