The Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter is a community-based organization that receives the bulk of our support through donations from Calgarians. We receive government funding that covers approximately 40 percent of our budget each year, but rely on our donors to provide the level of services required to create the social change necessary to end family violence in our community.

You can call the CWES office, make a tax deductible charitable donation online, or purchase items such as toys, diapers, and counseling for the children at the shelter from our Wish Book catalogue.

The Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter is facing new funding challenges with increases in operating costs, the need to offer competitive salaries in a tight labour market, and the growing demand for services. A number of other factors are putting increasing pressure on our limited resources:

• Currently, our outreach services are significantly inadequate to support clients as they move into the community, especially support for children.
• The lack of multi-year funding does not allow for planning past 12 months.
• A significant increase in clients with complex needs who demand more intensive support. 
• A lack of space for single women – we have only four shared spaces in our shelter as the other spaces are always given to families as a priority.

While we try to reduce our costs and stretch our dollars wherever possible through community partnerships with organizations like the Food Bank, and using volunteers whenever possible, our operating costs continue to rise. Fundraising is more important than ever before, and we thank the volunteers, organizations, corporations and individuals who provided support in 2007-2008.