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Carole Anne’s Place is a low-barrier day and overnight shelter for women and non-binary individuals experiencing homelessness in Hamilton. Operated by YWCA Hamilton, the program provides shelter, meals, healthcare and harm reduction services, withdrawal management, systems navigation, and care coordination. Carole Anne’s Place operates from a trauma-informed and harm reduction framework that incorporates a gender-based analysis of homelessness and drug use.
Maintaining Low-Barrier Admissions
Carole Anne’s Place maintains low-barrier access to shelter by:
- Welcoming women and non-binary individuals who use drugs; and
- Supporting participants regardless of their goals related to drug use.
Creating Flexible & Participant-Centred Expectations
Carole Anne’s Place approach is grounded in participant choice and individualized support. Practices include:
- Offering individualized care planning and coordination; and
- Working collaboratively with participants to identify priorities and support needs.
Fostering Safe & Trusting Environments
Carole Anne’s Place incorporates several practices aimed at building trust, safety, and connection, including:
- Integrating peer workers into service delivery through partnership with Keeping Six, a community-based organizations that promotes and defends the rights of people who use drugs;
- Facilitating access to mental health supports;
- Connecting participants to crisis intervention and emergency supports; and
- Creating dedicated spaces for women and non-binary individuals.
Embedding Harm Reduction & Health Supports
Carole Anne’s Place integrates harm reduction and healthcare supports into daily shelter operations through:
- Operating a supervised consumption space exclusively for women, trans, and non-binary people;
- Providing sterile injection and safer smoking equipment, safer-sex supplies, naloxone kits, and sharps disposal containers;
- Offering withdrawal management services on site;
- Providing low-barrier healthcare services;
- Supporting access to sexual and reproductive healthcare;
- Partnering with Shelter Health Midwifery to provide reproductive health services; and
- Connecting participants with mental health, addiction, and primary care supports.
Recognizing Women’s Intersecting Identities
Carole Anne’s Place recognizes the overlapping impacts of homelessness, drug use, gender-based violence, poverty, and health inequities. Practices include:
- Offering a supervised consumption space exclusively for women, trans, and non-binary people;
- Incorporating a gender-based analysis into service delivery;
- Supporting access to reproductive healthcare;
- Supporting access to gender-affirming healthcare;
- Providing advocacy and systems navigation supports; and
- Connecting participants to housing, legal, healthcare, and community services.
Carole Anne’s Place operates a supervised consumption space, open from 10pm to 9am, exclusively for women, trans, and non-binary people. The space provides:
- A safer environment for drug use;
- Access to sterile supplies and naloxone;
- Immediate support during emergencies;
- Connections to healthcare and social services; and
- Opportunities to build trusting relationships with staff and peer workers.