As more pregnant people face homelessness in Hamilton, YWCA pitches new facility to offer shelter and care

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

At the height of the pandemic, YWCA Hamilton staff were encountering women experiencing homelessness who were pregnant but going without prenatal care late into their pregnancy, or not at all.  

There were "really critical incidents" that ended in tragedy in 2021, YWCA CEO Medora Uppal said.

A woman miscarried in front of a shelter and two other women delivered stillbirths. A fourth pregnant woman who'd escaped an abusive partner was living in her car. 

Some women, whose babies were taken from them at birth, later overdosed and died.

"If women are giving birth in this way or experiencing pregnancy without prenatal care, there are real long-term public health implications," Uppal said. 

"These are not the kind of conditions you should expect in Canada."

The YWCA has done what it can to intervene. 

By 2022, it had created three beds within its transitional living program at its downtown MacNab Street location specifically for women and non-binary individuals needing emergency reproductive care, said Mary Vaccaro, a program coordinator. 

To date, upwards of 68 pregnant women and non-binary people have accessed the program who'd otherwise have nowhere else to go, Vaccaro said. Their circumstances are worsened by the opioid and housing crises, and the lasting impacts of the pandemic, which created lasting barriers to health care and contraception. 

Three beds is not enough for the YWCA to care for every pregnant person in need and it is currently looking to expand. 

It's seeking government funding for a 90-unit supportive transitional housing project on land it owns on Barton Street, called the Oakwood Project, said Uppal. The project would provide housing for women, children and gender-diverse people, and some of the beds would be for those requiring reproductive care. 

"We think this is the missing piece for the need in Hamilton," Uppal said. 

Uppal is looking for $6 million from the city for start-up costs like demolition, $34 million from the federal government to construct the building and $4 million to $6 million annually from the province for operating costs, she said.