Region denies funding request from sexual assault support centre

Approximately 200 survivors of sexual assault are waiting for counselling from the Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC) of Waterloo Region—its largest wait list ever.

The centre has seen a 58 per cent increase in people needing to access the counselling program since the start of the pandemic, says Laura Hill, the centre's development and communications coordinator.

“This has led to the most significant wait list in our centre's history,” Hill says. “Our team strives to meet the demand but resources are limited.”

Sara Casselman, the centre's executive director, recently appeared as a delegate at the June 22 regional council meeting, where she requested $50,000 in additional funding to help meet demand and lower the wait list.

This week, regional staff recommended the request be denied because the additional funding was outside the region’s funded mandate for public health and community services. 

Staff suggested instead that since sexual assault counselling services fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Attorney General, regional council advocate to the province for an increase in funding that would allow the support centre to address the backlog. 

Cambridge city council received a similar request last September for a one-time grant of $10,000 in “emergency bridge funding” for the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener-Waterloo and Area, which runs Cambridge’s first drop-in space for people experiencing homelessness and addiction.

That request was approved, but not without criticism of the region and the province for failing to provide sufficient financial support to ACCKWA, which has been dealing with a surge in demand for its services since the start of the pandemic.

“We are aware that counselling services are underfunded,” says regional councillor Elizabeth Clarke, in an interview with CambridgeToday. Clarke is also the CEO of YWCA Kitchener-Waterloo. 

Clarke said in recent years, council has seen more and more funding requests from support services like SASC, largely due to a lack of funding increases from the province to support surging wait lists.

“It doesn’t make sense for the region to step up and fund what the province is supposed to be funding,” Clarke says. “We need more provincial funding ourselves.”

Budgets are under pressure, and there is a major difference between what the region receives from the province and what it needs, she added.

Although council denied additional funding to SASC on Tuesday, Clarke says council will continue to push the provincial government to boost funding for the sexual assault centre and the many victims it supports.

Before the increased demand triggered by the pandemic, SASC also experienced a surge of intakes in 2018, just after the “MeToo” movement took off, inspiring survivors to reach out for help around the world.

Since then, Hill says, funding from the province for basic services provided by the sexual assault centre has not increased at all.

“We would love for support for survivors to be seen as an essential service and funded as such,” she says.

The latest funding challenge faced by a local social service agency is indicative of what's happening across the region and across the province, say regional staff.

Peter Sweeney, the region's commissioner of community services told council Tuesday that while the Region of Waterloo has a mandate to improve access to affordable housing and shelter space to tackle the homelessness crisis, it is “not a challenge that is a responsibility or even the purview of municipal governments.”

Despite that, the local homelessness situation was dire enough last year to prompt the region to invest $2.4 million from the tax levy to help address the issue.

Based on a point-in-time count done last fall, the region bumped up that amount by $3 million in this year's budget.

The region estimates more than 1,000 people are experiencing homelessness of some sort this summer, including at least 135 living outside and 456 people experiencing chronic homelessness.

At last count there were 21 encampments across Waterloo Region.

Cambridge MPP Brian Riddell's office said he was not available to comment on local provincial funding deficits.

Kitchener South-Hespeler MPP Jess Dixon did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.