La rue des Femmes needs you!
Homeless women need us year-round, and the pandemic has worsened their living conditions. They need us now, more than ever!
We are here for them and have adapted our essential care and services to women’s current needs, in compliance with the required health measures.
- We are maintaining our accommodation services; we have extended our emergency stays and are accepting more women when spaces become available.
- Our day centre services are now offered at the door.
- We are providing grocery bags, emergency meals, clothing, toiletries, access to telephones, showers and washrooms at the door… over 2,000 visits a month.
- Our outreach workers are providing relational health care and maintaining the human contact so essential to women’s need to feel safe. They reassure the residents, make supportive phone calls to those who live outside, and greet those who come to our doors with compassion and kindness. They also search for a shelter or day centre for them in designated areas.
The pandemic has not lessened the work of our workers; on the contrary, it has considerably intensified it: services at the door have increased enormously, and all the women need psychological support and protection at this time of great anxiety and significant instability.
Health and safety: our priority
From the beginning of the crisis, we have introduced rigorous measures to minimize the risk of contagion in our houses. We have increased maintenance protocols and trained our women workers. We have all the personal protective equipment required, and we are working to ensure our supplies are secure. Volunteers are making masks for us.
Collaboration with our partners
We are working in solidarity with the CIUSSS, the City of Montréal, public health authorities, community resources and our partners in order to meet women’s needs as well as we can and to adapt quickly to the directives that have become necessary as the weeks go by.
In this time of great uncertainty, our services for women who are homeless, or in danger of becoming so, are more important than ever. Thank you for supporting our work!