N.S. women fleeing domestic abuse decry lack of affordable housing

Kate thought the hardest part of leaving her abusive husband would be mustering the courage to walk out of their house and never return. But in the months since she left, her hope of building a new life has dwindled. 

The thing she needs most seems out of reach. 

"I can't try to find a job, I can't better myself, I can't be safe if I don't have a home," she said in a recent interview. 

CBC News spoke to three women who have fled domestic abuse in Nova Scotia but have been forced to remain for months in shelters known as transition houses, as they search in vain for safe and affordable places to live.

They say they've been told by support workers it can take years to get into public housing, and other housing geared to income, including for women fleeing intimate partner violence, is full across the province.

This leaves the women, whom CBC News are not identifying by their real names because they fear for their safety, no choice but to try to find apartments at market rents in a province with low vacancy rates and soaring rental prices.

Two of the women said they are considering going back to their abusers because they don't know what else to do. One of them worries she will lose full custody of her child because the pair are living long term in a women's shelter.

They're pleading with the provincial government for help. 

"I think the provincial government isn't taking it seriously, the lack of affordable housing," Kate said. "When you have to turn women away and send them back to maybe their deaths, to an abusive husband in an abusive situation after they've found the courage to leave, just because we cannot find housing."

Ann de Ste Croix, the provincial co-ordinator for the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, said because of the current housing market, women are forced to remain for up to a year in transition houses, which are shelters for women and children who have fled abuse. Typically, she said, women are only supposed to stay for about six weeks.

De Ste Croix said last year, the 11 transition houses run by her organization provided services to about 4,200 women and children across the province. But the shelters are often at capacity, which can mean turning women away.

"Risks include women becoming homeless, and often that is hidden from our view," she said. "So we do have women who live on the streets, but also it can look like couch-surfing or trading sex for a bed." 

In small towns, it's the same story.

One of the smallest transition houses in the province, Autumn House in Amherst, N.S., is usually full.