Women's safe home in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., faces uncertain future as funding set to expire

A safe home in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., that serves women and children in the Sahtu fleeing family violence is facing possible closure as its pilot funding is set to expire in April 2025.

Hawa Dumbuya-Sesay, is the executive director of the YWCA N.W.T., which runs the home. 

Speaking with CBC News in Fort Good Hope on Sept. 25, she said the organization is desperately looking for $250,000 to continue operating the safe home for another year. The money would go toward staffing, basic supplies, groceries for the women and children, as well as rent and utilities of the property. 

"This is a desperate ask at the moment, we really need supporters, we really need the funding to come forward," Dumbuya-Sesay said. 

"It's really not promising at this point."

She said without financial support the home would need to close. 

The facility in Fort Good Hope is a three-bedroom house that allows women and children escaping family violence to stay in their home community, or region as it serves the entire Sahtu, if they choose. 

"We realize that the option to leave one's community is not always an easy one; it's very difficult," Dumbuya-Sesay said.

"And if we can make it possible for a woman that's fleeing family violence to be able to remain in her community if that allows, because we also realize sometimes there's a risk to stay in the community, but if the option is there then it's good if people can access that."

'We've proven that there's a need for it'

Dumbuya-Sesay was in Fort Good Hope for the Sahtu Secretariat Inc. annual general meeting last week to speak with leaders about funding possibilities. 

She said the safe home originally opened in March 2023, but several months later moved to a larger space to accommodate more women and children. Since opening it has served at least 12 women and 10 children.

"There's a need for it. We've proven that there's a need for it, the women that have accessed it with their children were in really vulnerable situations and if the home was not here we don't know what would have happened," Dumbuya-Sesay said. 

"It's saving lives, to be honest."

The project was funded by the federal Department of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) as a pilot. It received funding in late 2019, early 2020, but the project was delayed by COVID-19.

Work was able to resume in 2021-22 and Dumbuya-Sesay said the YWCA spent time working with the communities to ensure that the project was something that was wanted. 

Dumbuya-Sesay said she was told by WAGE that it couldn't extend the funding for an existing project and, to potentially continue to receive financial support for it, she would need to change the structure of it.

She said the YWCA is considering expanding the safe home program to include transitional housing and even treatment, but adding these changes wouldn't guarantee funding from WAGE.

A spokesperson for WAGE wrote in an email that it recognizes the importance of projects like the safe home. But it does not offer ongoing operational and administrative funding to organizations.

The spokesperson wrote that officials met with the YWCA N.W.T. last month and advised it of other possible funding opportunities. 

The YWCA also operates a safe home in Fort Simpson that is also looking for $250,000 in funding to continue operating. 

Community-led project

Brenda T'Seleie Pierrot lives in Fort Good Hope and works part-time as the community's safe home coordinator. 

"We opened our doors to people who had no place to go, had children," she said.

"An elderly woman's home was broken into and broken stuff all over and we took her in." 

T'Seleie Pierrot said if the safe home closes, people from the community will be reliant on services outside the region and will have to wait for those to be available.

"With it being here, you have access to it right now," she said. 

"It's important for us to really advocate for money for this because we try so hard to keep our people within our communities ... It's our people, it's our responsibility to take care of them." 

Dumbuya-Sesay said the YWCA has had conversations with potential funders like Housing N.W.T., the N.W.T. Department of Health and Social Services, N.W.T. Executive and Indigenous Affairs, WAGE and leaders in the Sahtu.

"We're really worried because right now all conversations we've had are not really promising us any funding," she said. "It's a huge worry because we only have six months ... and we want to have something solid that we can rely on."