HARMONY
HOUSES OR A USELESS GUN REGISTRY?
PUBLICATION:
The
Ottawa Citizen
DATE:
2004.12.05
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Citizen Weekly
PAGE:
C2
COLUMN:
Sunday Morning
BYLINE:
Janice Kennedy
SOURCE:
The Ottawa Citizen
ILLUSTRATION:
Graphic/Diagram: (Battered miracle)
NOTE:
Ran with sidebars "Maggie's story" and "Getting a life -
at19" on page C2.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Battered
miracle: Bruised but still standing, Harmony House battles on for abused women
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No
poll or survey ever really measures indifference, which is a shame.
As
event organizers prepare to mark the 15th anniversary tomorrow of the Universite
de Montreal massacre, it would be interesting to get a fix on how many people
still care.
Fifteen
years ago, when the horror was fresh, everybody cared. As an issue, violence
against women was picked over and analysed and denounced endlessly. Men and
women, both, tried to figure out psychology, circumstance and the cultural
persuasions that made victims of some women and victimizers of some men. The
topic engaged as much as it often polarized.
These
days, violence against women is no longer a hot issue -- and not because the
world has become a better, safer place. It's no longer a hot issue because it's
been around so long. Because it's become tedious, the same old tragedies up
against the same old absence of solutions. Because sensitive people can only
keep beating their heads against brick walls for so long before indifference
becomes preferable.
These
days, talk about female victims of violence usually earns one of three
responses: deep concern (this, from that slim minority of people who recognize
the problem and still want to address it); hostility (this, from that slim
minority who consider the whole thing a male-bashing feminist fabrication); and
helpless indifference (this, from everyone else). The victims of violence
against women are like the poor, whom Scripture dooms to being always with us.
It's sad. You feel bad. Whaddya gonna do?
Here's
one thing you can do. Look again, this time with fresh eyes.
Look
again at a problem that not only hasn't gone away, it's gotten worse. Look at
victims not as statistics but as real mothers, daughters and sisters with real
hopes and terrible fears. Look at the places that deal with these real people.
Ottawa's
Harmony House would be a fine place to start.
The
city's only "second-stage" shelter -- based here, but really
designated to serve all of Eastern Ontario -- Harmony House takes women after
their initial crisis stage, when they've fled the violence, and helps them onto
their feet. The 18-year-old program does this through counselling and classes,
connections with vital community services, a food bank, child care, emotional
support.
And
they do it through the modest living accommodations they offer, small apartments
where the women and their children can be safe from the fists, boots and weapons
that have driven them from their homes. The spartan apartments have phones with
small screens showing who's at the door of the securely locked units, and panic
buttons to summon police in no time flat.
They
need them, says executive director Dawn Blakley. Violent ex-partners have been
known to track down their former victims at Harmony House. When that happens,
the woman's security has been compromised, and she must be transferred
elsewhere. Fast.
It's
not easy being Harmony House's executive director, and security issues are just
the tip of the iceberg. You want to hear other horror stories, ask Blakley about
money.
"We've
been struggling for eight years to maintain this program because we so believe
in it -- and now we feel as if we've just been shot out of the water."
Blakley
is referring to a sudden and unanticipated policy shift by the McGuinty
government, one with a disastrous ripple effect. Last spring, the premier's
office announced a restoration of funding to the province's 27 second-stage
shelters, like Harmony House, that had been cut off by the previous Conservative
government. At least, that's what the McGuinty announcement sounded like,
talking of "$3.5 million for second-stage housing supports for women and
children escaping abusive relationships."
Shelter
workers weren't dancing in the streets, but they were pleased. Finally, a ray of
sunshine over a dreary landscape. Then, a month ago, Community and Social
Services Minister Sandra Pupatello dropped a bombshell. The $3.5 million would
not go to second-stage shelters after all. It would go to "transitional
support," to be spread around various community services to help more women
in more ways.
"Now
there's no core funding at all -- again," says Blakley. "This was our
hope and now it's gone." Worse, because of the announcement last spring,
many of Harmony House's supporters assumed the dark days were over, and
donations fell off -- by 70 per cent. "It makes me so angry," she says
of the government's about-face.
For
someone with such a fancy title, Harmony House's executive director does not
work in the lap of luxury. Her tiny office is up a couple of flights in a house
that has seen better days. She shares her office with a part-timer and the top
floor with a small, well-lived-in children's playroom. The furniture is old and
the computer equipment aging. There's barely enough room to accommodate all the
papers, files and a pencil-holding mug inscribed with the words, "Lord,
help me hang in there."
These
days, that is pretty much Harmony House's cri du coeur.
Since
1999, according to a report by the Ontario Association of Interval and
Transition Houses, shelters in the province have seen marked increases in the
numbers of women served, the length of their stays and the costs of things like
energy and insurance.
At
Harmony House, the situation is bare-bones and dire. They've cut staff to two
full-time persons, they're in a deep deficit situation and they must rely
utterly on the kindness of strangers. "We pretty much have to beg for
everything," Blakley says. "We run solely on donations, fundraising
and community partnerships."
Recent
meetings with Pupatello have done little to raise spirits. Ministerial comments
about how shelters should do more fundraising suggest that her government is
heading toward -- well, the dismal status quo. When she talks about low
percentages of women who use shelters, Blakley interprets that as groundwork for
justifying a lack of funding.
"It's
very scary," she says. As it is, Harmony House has waiting lists and turns
away people regularly.
In
Ontario, according to the Assaulted Women's Helpline, 40 women and children on
average are murdered each year. As well, a woman is injured every minute of
every day.
Without
second-stage shelters like Harmony House, the abuse continues and often
escalates. It's known that a significant number of the women who have fled
violence often return to it when they find themselves trapped in poverty and
hopelessness. At least, they reason, their kids will have a roof over their
heads and food on the table. It is depressing and wrong and tragic.
Like
a small and glimmering miracle against bleak odds, a place like Harmony House
restores bruised lives and offers women escape from that fatal hopelessness.
Fifteen
years after Marc Lepine turned Dec. 6 into a day of dutiful remembrance, that
should be enough to rattle anyone's tired indifference.
-
- -
Harmony
House can use donations of goods, money or volunteer time. For more information,
go to www.harmonyhousews.com
-
- -
Janice
Kennedy's column appears here weekly. Contact her at jkennedy@thecitizen.canwest.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATION:
The Ottawa Citizen
DATE:
2004.12.05
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Citizen Weekly
PAGE:
C2
COLUMN:
Sunday Morning
BYLINE:
Janice Kennedy
SOURCE:
The Ottawa Citizen
NOTE:
Ran with sidebar "Battered miracle" on page C2.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maggie's
story
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For
a long time after she'd fled to Ottawa, Maggie continued being afraid.
"Oh
God, yes. I used to have nightmares," she says now, looking back at the
bitter times. "I could never relax when I was outside." A few years
ago, her ex showed up in Ottawa after a friend of his had seen her here.
"In the middle of the street, he tried to strangle me."
But
that's past now, says Maggie (whose real name, of course, is not Maggie at all).
"I'm not as jittery as I used to be. I feel stronger."
For
that, she thanks Harmony House, where she ended up nearly a decade ago after
fleeing a violent relationship in a neighbouring city. It's the reason she's
throwing a party again this Christmas.
For
the sixth year in a row, Maggie is tracking down donations of ham, turkey and
assorted trimmings. She's hoping for a few toys also, since you can hardly have
a Christmas party without gifts for the kids. There will be game-playing and
carol-singing. She'll wrap the gifts, prepare the meal and make sure that her
guests, all former residents of Harmony House, have bus tickets to get to the
party and home again.
It's
a lovely way to say thank you.
These
days, Maggie lives with her daughter, who has finally stopped feeling nervous.
Maggie owns and operates a small business, which is doing fine. She feels as if
her future is actually in her hands.
That
would not have described her in 1995 when she arrived here, toddler in hand, a
desperate woman fleeing an abusive partner. She had saved just enough for a bus
ticket.
"I
had nothing," she says. "I came to Ottawa because it was the closest
place, although I knew nothing about it and had never been here." Someone
had given her the phone number of the shelter here, which led her eventually to
Harmony House.
"They
helped me figure out what I wanted to do and how to go about doing it."
She
had help with her daughter. She went back to school. She even learned some self-defence.
And she was heard.
"Sometimes,"
Maggie recalls, "that's all you need, just to have someone listen."
When you leave an abusive relationship, you leave more than an ex-partner
behind. "You lose your friends. You lose your family. You feel so
alone."
Without
Harmony House, she says, "I honestly don't know what I would have
done."
That's
why she still keeps in touch. Her reasoning is pure, simple -- and sad. "I
want to be able to help the next person who comes along."
Anyone
can hear the gratitude in that. But to hear as well the dismal, certain
knowledge that there will indeed be a next person -- and more persons after that
-- takes some sensitivity.
Against
past evidence, you find yourself hoping that the government might show some
small evidence of that sensitivity.
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PUBLICATION:
The Ottawa Citizen
DATE:
2004.12.05
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Citizen Weekly
PAGE:
C2
COLUMN:
Sunday Morning
BYLINE:
Janice Kennedy
SOURCE:
The Ottawa Citizen
NOTE:
Ran with main story "Battered miracle" on page C2.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting
a life - at 19
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two
years ago, when she was 19, Hanna found herself at Harmony House. That was after
seven years of hell.
Since
the age of 12, Hanna (a pseudonym) had been undergoing abuse in her home --
physical, sexual and (it goes without saying) emotional. It had become so much a
part of her world, she says now, it seemed almost normal.
"Until
you're out of it, you don't even realize how bad it is."
She
kept running away, making her full escape at age 16. In an indifferent
relationship three years after that, she gave birth to a baby girl. Her brother,
one of her abusers at home, was so enraged he came after her.
The
attack moved Hanna in a way nothing before ever had. "I was no longer just
scared for my own life, I was scared for my daughter. I thought, the best thing
I can do is flee."
Terrified
and on her own, she ended up at Harmony House. It was the best thing that could
have happened.
Hanna
says Harmony House helped her understand her rights, helped her get into
parenting classes, helped her get into part-time education. When her brother
attacked her 18 months ago and nearly put her into hospital, she did what she
had never done before. She called police. Her brother was charged, served time
and now, she says, doesn't come near her.
She
no longer lives at Harmony House, but the time she spent there she considers
invaluable. Not only was she safe while she got busy with the job of forging a
future for herself, she was given the space to do something else she considers
crucial.
"Mainly,
I worked a lot on my self-esteem."
These
days, she enjoys being a mother to her two-year-old daughter. She works
part-time. She does volunteer work, helping women in need. She is a university
student, taking sociology. She'd love to become a high-school teacher one day,
although she hasn't ruled out social work.
Ask
Hanna what impact Harmony House has had on her, and she has no difficulty at all
describing it. Simply put?
"I started living my
life at 19."