A sudden silence has fallen upon some services designed to help victims of domestic abuse in Barrie.
There is no doubt, say those who work with organizations that offer support to people dealing with violence in their homes, that it’s somehow connected to the need to cluster within our homes as we all try to create a safe, physical distance from others during the pandemic.
But while police report that calls to domestic and family disputes are showing a clear increase during the past several weeks, some of the services are not.
Worried that conflicts left unchecked will worsen, increasing the potential for violence, they want to get the message out that help and all the supports are still available.
In addition, victims’ services has extra funding to provide people with temporary accommodation and Legal Aid Ontario is offering more services and is waiving financial eligibility requirements allowing more people to seek free legal advice.
“I really am a little bit worried about what’s happening in the family unit,” said Lisa Emms Wice, executive director of the Barrie Mediation Centre, which continues to provide a variety of supports to help people resolve issues virtually.
Typically, the centre has a co-ordinator stationed at the government-run Family Law Information Centre at the Barrie courthouse, as well as in Orillia and Bracebridge, who helps people access the resources that they need, fielding about 40 inquiries daily. That isn’t currently operating, although services are still available by phone, video conferencing and online.
But Wice says calls are down right across the board, and that includes inquiries from people in abusive relationships.
“That has reduced greatly, everything is reduced greatly, which scares me because I don’t know where these people are. I know some are still in conflict and yet we’re not seeing them, and we’re not hearing from them,” she said. “My fear is: Where are these people in conflict and what kind of aftermath is there going to be, not only for separated couples, but what’s it going to be for marital situations that have just had enough of it. Are we going to see more in domestic abuse?
"The financial turmoil for these families… all of those things have to come to a head at some time and that scares me a little bit," Wice added
Wice’s experience is not reflected in what Barrie and South Simcoe police are seeing. They have both been getting more calls from families asking for help.
From March 12 to April 30, police in Barrie responded to 232 calls about domestic disputes. That’s up from 214 during the same period last year. There was also a jump in family disputes — 93 since March 12, compared to 61 last year. Police were unable to provide details about the calls or whether any resulted in charges.
South Simcoe police, which covers the towns of Innisfil and Bradford West Gwillimbury, had 44 calls for verbal domestic disputes from March 1 to April 30, up from 39 in 2019. Officers also responded to eight family disputes, up from five the previous year.
South Simcoe police also report a dramatic decrease in the number of assault charges this year, 14, compared to 34 during the same period last year. Although there were six of the more serious assault levels two and three charges this year, up from five last year.
For Teresa MacLennan, it’s an eerie calm.
“The silence is never a good thing,” the executive director of Barrie’s Women & Children’s Shelter said in an email. “We see surges of requests and then a very concerning and uncomfortable silence.”
Typically, the organization fields 10 calls daily, that has been going down to one or two in recent weeks.
MacLennan said the shelter gets funding for 27 beds, but during normal times often accommodates 35 women and children. The shelter is using other spaces in the city to respect current physical-distancing practices, but has seen numbers drop to as low as 15 during the crisis and swing up to 27.
MacLennan says experience has shown that stress in a community, such as that affecting so many as a result of COVID-19, also translates into stress at home.
“That increased stress means that women are experiencing elevated levels of abuse. The intensity of the crisis calls we are receiving is reflective of those experiences,” she said. “The calls are very heightened and women are very frightened of being isolated at home with their abusive partners.
“Now, more than ever, women are at a very heightened risk of that extreme violence.”
Marie McCallum, executive director of Victim Services of Simcoe County, anticipated a severity in disputes at the start of the health crisis after hearing the experiences in other countries. So she set in motion a monitoring system to gauge the level of abuse in homes just as the crisis was hitting Canada.
Her early findings confirm that the intensity and severity of the abuse has increased.
“Our survey of domestic clients indicates approximately 50 per cent have experienced an increased level of violence and level of seriousness of assault due to being isolated at home during COVID-19 with the person who is the aggressor,” she said.
McCallum said some of the reasons given are: increased number of hours together leading to increased friction, increased use of alcohol and drugs due to unemployment and financial difficulties, increased family problems due to isolation and lack of social supports.
And Victim Services of Simcoe County is seeing an increase in referrals for service, including intimate partners who have been assaulted.
McCallum was also expecting a big increase in the number of people needing hotel accommodation, and so was the provincial government, which last month announced extra funding for victims’ services across the province. But those additional requests never materialized, at least in Simcoe County.
McCallum stressed that help is still available to people in conflict if they can’t leave the home. Part of the service includes establishing a safety plan to help keep people in conflict safe while remaining at home, that includes how to get out of the home safely when they’re ready and a phone if they need one.
Marlene Ham, executive director of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Housing, said the coalition of groups from across the province helping women and children flee violence was dealing with pressures prior to COVID-19.
Now, with some shelters reporting surges as a result of the pandemic and many experiencing ebbs and flows like the Barrie shelter, Ham says there’s an increased sense of urgency.
“Gender-based violence is the pandemic that we were dealing with prior to COVID-19 … now this,” she said. “What we want women to know is they don’t have to choose between the two.
“They (shelters) are open and they’re there for women.”
