this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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[–] DrivebyHaiku 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I am not arguing for Gender specifc shelters what I am saying is that it's not a matter of how many reports of DV, the motivating factor in funding is how often each statistical group end in a homicide. It's a stumbling block which means that the priority often overshadows services for men that do exist when doing a casual search even online.

The main needs of men escaping DV are mental health support and police assisted extraction, temporary housing and childcare assistance. The first two are decently prioritized depending on Province. Here in BC there's decent resources directly through Coastal Health and less great coverage the Fraser Health Authority but childcare assistance is across the board spotty and really 99. 9% of the time the elements of making someone physically untraceable are not nessisary if the offender is a woman which means that if we were to look into hotel voucher programs and relocation services instead of permanent brick and mortar shelters for those cases you could likely provide options that fill the requirements for communities in smaller towns with a quarter of the funding of a shelter. Straight men generally do not have to skip town so they can often rely on their previously made support structures more so the time spent in temporary housing is often stays of less than a week.

What a lot of advocates in the space keep pushing for is a replication of the system because of the idea that it's not fair to give men a "lesser service" but the needs of the cohort are completely different and we should structure care to fit the needs based on an evidence based model instead of pointing to something else that is designed for a group with completly different needs.

[–] Dearche 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't agree that's the point of DV shelters. The entire point of them is to be a way for victims to be separated from their abusers. It's entirely a short term solution to a long term problem, but it's a step that is needed to be able to have a long term solution, regardless of the gender of the victim. Not being separated from the abuser means that the victim is primed to further abuse, or be convinced that escape is impossible.

All the other services are available to both genders for sure, but that's because most of it isn't DV specific in the first place (putting aside divorce lawyers at least).

The issue I'm saying is that the first step is the most crucial and virtually a prerequisite towards a solution, yet there are zero facilities for men in the entire country? Maybe it's different now, but at least it wasn't in 2013, though I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to know. But you would think that at a minimum, there should be at least one such facilities in every major city in the country, right? Even if can only handle two or three people at most, with a part-time assistant to help the victims.

There's a massive difference between being underfunded, and having zero resources, and that's what I think is the biggest problem. It's not about being poorly funded, or poorly serviced, but a complete absence that's the same as saying that this isn't an issue, despite police reports themselves saying that it certainly is.

[–] DrivebyHaiku 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

A complete absence of funding isn't the same as saying it isn't an issue. At a government level there's always more problems than money and manpower to solve them. Approaching it from that perspective is not a particularly healthy way to approach these situations. Realistically when you look at the the two cohorts you see very different behaviours. Funding for all shelters is currently massively declining across the board in Canada and no one pilots a new program when existing ones are failing.

Think of it like this. If you do not fear for your life but are escaping from an abusive relationship with child in tow what sounds like a better option : seeking help by going to a friend's or relative's place where there's familiarity and seeking help from an authority for assistance OR going blindly into a shelter system with a lot of unknowns? While it's true that men do need support seeking help from a formal shelter system is not a popular option.

The reason why women don't tend to rely on their existing support systems is because it's the first place abusive partners stalk if they intend a violent attack, not just an abusive encounter but an actual physical assult that puts other family members and friends lives at risk.

Hotel voucher programs and reserved open spots in pre-existing shelter systems do a similar solve to contemporary shelter programs but the reason mens shelters close isn't always funding related. In part it's because men don't often choose that route because a restraining order is usually more than enough to deter a female abuser and it is more comfortable relying on people you know. In the cases of DV homicide women are way more likely to be killed if they leave, men tend to be killed if they stay. It's not a matter of just dry DV stats. It's in the nitty gritty details of how these scenarios play out by gender divide that cause these initiatives to fail... which means it needs dedicated grassroots support which by and large isn't happening not because people won't donate but because while straight men love to complain that there's no mens shelters they are not coordinating dedicating their free time to make it happen. Queer specific initiatives are generally more successful because the organization structures are dedicated and they often do not rely on government but community support. What straight guys need to imbibe is you do not need a government stamp to start stuff.