Safety Close to Home

For more than a decade, Indigenous women and children fleeing violence have ended up at the shelter doors of the True North Society in rural southern Alberta. The number seeking shelter has only grown, and in 2024, Indigenous women and children accounted for 62% of all emergency shelter stays at True North.

Many require extended stays because safe, affordable housing is unavailable near their home communities. Many of these families come from rural areas that lack access to safe shelters and have a shortage of culturally appropriate supports. 

To meet Indigenous Peoples where they need the most support and to ensure they can remain in their safe, ancestral spaces, True North created the Holding Space for Indigenous Safety project. The project will provide year-round access to safe, culturally grounded shelter for those in crisis. 

Emergency beds will be reserved for Indigenous families while Indigenous staff will be employed to provide ceremony, traditional healing, cultural navigation, crisis intervention, and transition planning, while ensuring access to traditional supports, language, foods, and land-based healing practices. The program is created in partnership with Siksika Nation and builds off its long-term vision of developing an Indigenous-led shelter to strengthen community and ensure families have access to safety as close to home as possible.

True North has been active in the space since 1992 and has been providing trauma-informed shelter, outreach, and other services to countless families across southern Alberta. The Indigenous Reconciliation Fund (IRF) is honoured to contribute to this new initiative, providing Indigenous families with culturally centred care in their greatest time of need, creating pathways to long-term healing without barriers created by geography or funding.

Diocese of Calgary