{"id":31705,"date":"2022-07-28T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31705"},"modified":"2022-07-28T19:30:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T23:30:05","slug":"abuse-hurts-to-tackle-increased-demand-thanks-to-hoedown-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/abuse-hurts-to-tackle-increased-demand-thanks-to-hoedown-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Abuse Hurts to tackle increased demand thanks to Hoedown funding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When public health restrictions were lifted as COVID-19 steadied across Ontario, it was a welcome return to normalcy for many people \u2013 but, for others, it was a long-awaited opportunity to start anew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Abuse Hurts, a York Region-based organization supporting women and children fleeing all forms of abuse, it was like seeing a tap turned back on in terms of the numbers of families they were called upon to assist \u2013 and, several months on, demand remains high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping to address this demand will be the Magna Hoedown Community Fund, a pot of money established by Magna International to support 30 local charities that would have otherwise benefited from the annual Wild West Hoedown, which was cancelled for the third year running this past spring due to COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is so critical because we\u2019re not like most charities as we\u2019re not doing galas or golf tournaments, so we\u2019re just so grateful to Magna not just for us but how they support the community over the years. It is phenomenal and we\u2019re truly grateful,\u201d says Ellen Campbell, Executive Director of Abuse Hurts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magna\u2019s contribution this year will go directly to Delivering Hope, Abuse Hurts\u2019 programs supporting women and children. Through Delivering Hope, families who are referred by other organizations to Abuse Hurts are helped to get back on their feet with clothing, housewares, furniture and other supports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just women and children who are referred to Abuse Hurts, Ms. Campbell adds. Men escaping abuse sometimes come across their threshold as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemand has really gone up,\u201d she says. \u201cOnce COVID was over and the restrictions were released and the women could come out of shelters it was like a tap got turned on. We were open and we still provided and delivered, but [over COVID] it was a lot slower because the women were kind of stuck in the shelter. If one woman got COVID the whole place was shut down, but once restrictions came off we just had a flood. We\u2019re really busy now and it\u2019s like all of a sudden there\u2019s just a flood of people who couldn\u2019t do anything before who are coming to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domestic abuse is up over 30 per cent nation-wide, she notes, and some women who were planning on escaping their situation in and around March of 2020 had nothing short of a roadblock put in place with the Provincial lockdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was frustrating [at the start of the pandemic] because we had all this clothing, furniture and everything but we weren\u2019t getting a lot of requests because everybody was kind of shut in,\u201d says Ms. Campbell. \u201cAs soon as the regulations came off, it was like a switch and it hasn\u2019t stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While demand for the services Abuse Hurts provides continues to be on an upward trajectory, a heartening trend is so too is awareness of what abuse entails. This has resulted in people being more open about seeking help, says Ms. Campbell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsually, it is physical abuse because it\u2019s when it really gets bad that women will leave and will go back too sometimes because of the financial situation and women [find] they can\u2019t manage,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen it is physical abuse, it usually starts with emotional abuse and degrading words like \u2018You\u2019re stupid\u2019 or \u2018You\u2019re fat,\u2019 and it starts that way \u2013 verbally, emotionally, and eventually it goes into the physical. Very rarely does it start off as physical abuse. It\u2019s a process and it takes time. The thing with emotional abuse, too, is sometimes people don\u2019t realize it is happening to them because it is so gradual. They start to lose a sense of self, self-esteem, and they\u2019re more or less conditioned for the physical abuse. It\u2019s kind of grooming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are in shelters usually because it is physical abuse and they\u2019re running for their lives  and fear because they have already been hit. If someone has been physically abused, they have also been emotionally abused, for sure, and sometimes sexually abused. The other interesting thing is people don\u2019t realize the domestic abuse of men.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men, she says, are not immune from domestic abuse and this is something the community has become steadily more cognizant of. While there have been some improvements, Ms. Campbell said previously police sometimes couldn\u2019t understand \u201chow this 5\u20194 woman was hitting and beating a six-foot man,\u201d but recent shelter developments saw spaces for men quickly fill up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you go through the same shame, guilt, embarrassment and everything a woman goes through, maybe even fear for your life, the shelter filled up immediately,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Abuse Hurts, visit abusehurts.ca. For a full list of local charities and non-profits benefiting from this year\u2019s Magna Hoedown Community Fund, visit hoedown.ca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When public health restrictions were lifted as COVID-19 steadied across Ontario, it was a welcome return to normalcy for many people \u2013 but, for others, it was a long-awaited opportunity to start anew. For Abuse Hurts, a York Region-based organization supporting women and children fleeing all forms of abuse, it was like seeing a tap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31697,"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-31705","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\/2022\/07\/2022-07-28-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8fn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:27:42","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\/31705","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=31705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}