Nanaimo’s Island Crisis Care Society is facing a crisis of its own.
Its Samaritan House women’s emergency shelter is housing more people than it can take and executive director Violet Hayes says those in need are being turned away every day.
“We often see women that will come to our door and if we have to turn them away maybe a couple of days later they come back and they’ve been raped or beaten and it’s just not a good situation,” she said.
“We have some very unsafe places out there and women are very vulnerable.”
When Anna Atkinson heard about the organization’s troubles last fall, the local singer and VIU English professor decided to lend her voice to the cause.
On Sept. 9 at Cedar United Church Atkinson will perform a charity folk music concert entitled Safe Harbours: Songs of Women and Water with proceeds going towards the society’s More Room for Hope campaign to expand Samaritan House.
Atkinson said it’s an issue that’s close to her heart. She’s particularly moved by seniors experiencing homelessness. Hayes said Samaritan House somtimes shelters women in their 70s and 80s.
“We’re talking about your homeless grandmother, which is just to me not just a tragic thing, it’s a terrifying thing. What is that saying about our culture if our grandmothers are homeless and we’re not paying attention?” Atkinson said.
“So partly this concert is to raise money, but they need so much money to do this expansion that partly this concert is just to raise awareness: This is real. It’s happening in our community.”
More Room for Hope is a $2-million project started in the last year that aims to renovate the existing three-storey Samaritan House building on Nicol Street and enlarge it to occupy a neighbouring lot with the intention of doubling the facility’s 20-person capacity. Hayes said $150,000 has been raised so far.
To align with the evening’s cause, Atkinson’s repertoire will be composed of songs about women and by women. She will also have a limited number of CDs available.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to actually sing some songs that I don’t often get to sing because they don’t fit into the concerts that I’ve been doing…” she said.
“What I want to do in this concert is not just raise money and raise awareness but I want to foreground women, both the vulnerability and the strength. And that has been recognized even before we had 20th-century feminism. The strength and the resilience and the cheekiness of women have been recognized in folk song for a long time.”
Atkinson said her goal for the performance while “more aspirational than it is concrete,” is to see the church filled, raise $1,000 and promote the crisis care society’s work.
“But what’s even more important is that we should all in this community pull together and recognize this amongst many other wonderful things that we have around us. Ways that we have the opportunity to really make a difference in the world.”
WHAT’S ON … Anna Atkinson presents Safe Harbours: Songs of Women and Water at Cedar United Church, 1644 Cedar Rd., on Sunday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20, available from Atkinson at 250-327-2247 or anna.atkinson@viu.ca.
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