1st shelter for Muslim women opens in Hamilton
Story by Aura Carreño Rosas • Yesterday 

For the first time in the Hamilton area, Muslim women in need of shelter services now have an option specifically for them.

Nisa Homes, an organization with nine other shelters across Canada, has opened its tenth shelter in the city. An official launch takes place Tuesday afternoon at City Hall, on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Yasmine Youssef, program director at Nisa Homes, told CBC Hamilton that shelters like this are needed because of a demand for beds and for spaces for marginalized people to feel safe.

"There's a lot of fear and stigma, because of racism, because of Islamophobia, because of anti-Asian hate. You're seeing a lot of people afraid to reach out because they don't know how they're going to be received," she said.

The shelter, which has already begun to take in families, caters to Muslim women but is open to all women. However, its capacity is limited to 16 people.



The shelter has specific items for Muslim women to partake in their religious practices, such as prayer rugs and copies of the Qur'an.© Aura Carreño Rosas/CBC

Nisa Homes says 63 of every 100 women that come to the organization's shelters face domestic violence. Youssef said many are also women of colour who may not speak English and don't have immigration status.

"There's so many barriers immigrants specifically face that need to be addressed... But there's nothing that supports women that are immigrants who are also fleeing domestic violence," she said.



The shelter also has many shared spaces, including a children's area, living room, kitchen and dining room.© Aura Carreño Rosas/CBC

She said clients tell her that culturally appropriate support can be hard to access.

"They tell us, 'yeah, I did try to reach out for help, and when I when I was speaking to [other service providers], they told me the problem is that [I'm] Muslim, [I] have to leave Islam, and then everything will be okay.'"

Youssef has been with Nisa Homes since their launch in 2015, when there was only one shelter was set up in Mississauga.

The organization now has shelters across the country, including in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal

Culturally specific services

School board trustee Sabreina Dahab said she was "really, really excited" and emotional about the opening of this shelter.

Dahab said in recent years, she has worked with and supported Muslim women by connecting them with resources and translation services.

"It felt really lonely and isolating to be doing this without an agency to support or without like a network. [Now] I can respond to this more systemically [instead of] one person in the community who is trying to do this by themselves," she said.



Ward 2 trustee Sabreina Dahab said she's glad to have an organization working to support Muslim women in Hamilton.© Bobby Hristova/CBC

She added that spaces like this are vital for providing culturally specific services for Muslim women, saying she's heard of women who are not "even given access to halal meat" at other shelters.

"All of these things are essential for not only escaping and leaving the necessity of violence situations, but to be able to be well supported in this city."

Lack of data

Youssef said although she knows from experience that there is a need for culturally specific shelters, the demographics are under-researched.

"At the moment, shelters and transitional homes don't track anything outside of whether you speak French or English. And whether you're Indigenous or not. They don't track racial data. They don't track religious data, none of that stuff is required," said Youssef.



Accommodations at the shelter include various rooms with three beds for women coming in with children, and one room to accommodate four single women.© Aura Carreño Rosas/CBC

She said some reasons might be the strain shelters already have to function and systemic racism.

"Our shelter system is the same as it was what in the 60s and 70s … But our population, our community, our society looks so different now than it did in the 60s and 70s."

"It [would be] easier to advocate for something and to get changes passed when you have numbers to back up what you're saying," she added.

'They're not alone'

According to Youssef, the ultimate goal is to help these women heal.

"We make sure we use [our services] to make them feel more comfortable … to make them feel like this can actually work and they can get back on their feet. They're not alone... They can survive on their own without their abuser," she said.


Although many corners of the shelter are still a work in progress, some people are already living there, and staff say they expect the home to fill up in no time.© Aura Carreño Rosas/CBC

"We get so many clients — more often than not — telling us 'the only reason I decided to reach out to you was because I knew you understood where I'm coming from, you look like me, you speak like me,'" she added.