The Feminist Occupation of Nellie’s Hostel

1. No woman shall be turned away from nellie’s due to lack of space or finances
2. No woman shall be asked to leave once her short length of stay, for which the hostel is funded, has expired
3. We demand more housing facilities for women and more money so that those services are no longer run on the backs of other women
4. Overcrowding contravenes health and fire regulations but we refuse to allow lack of housing and lack of money to force women to return to intolerable home situations or to the streets and park benches
5. This emergency occupation shall continue until more money is received¹

Nellie’s Hostel, one of the first women’s shelters in Toronto, was initially established in 1973 to provide shelter beds “for young homeless women dealing with teenage pregnancy, suicide, self-harm, crime, prostitution, ill-health, and abuse.”²  They soon found, however, that most of their clients were middle-aged and older women who were fleeing abusive relationships. Soon after, the shelter increased its capacity to provide temporary emergency residence for women and children who had experienced domestic violence.

In the early 1970s, the widespread social problem of violence against women and children had only recently emerged within Canadian public discourse. Until Criminal Code amendments were passed in 1982, Canada did not recognize marital rape as a crime, charges of incest required the corroboration of more than one witness, and men were presumed to have ultimate disciplinary authority over their wives and their children. Nellie’s Hostel and other women’s shelters established essential services for women who had no legal recourse against abusive husbands, and nowhere else to go after escaping the violence in their own homes.

As Nellie’s staff member Paula Fainstat wrote, “Bandaid or not, this was a very real need which is not being met in most other areas. At Nellie’s, as with the women’s movement generally, we tried to provide the needed services for women ourselves rather than demanding them from the government. What this inevitable meant though, was taking a huge amount of work for shit wages… in the name of the cause.”³  In a letter to The Globe and Mail published on February 26th, 1976, Fainstat had also noted that “It is really an irony to be working in a crisis centre when you see the Government taking calculated steps to throw more people into crisis.”⁴  These “calculated steps” included a 5.5% limit on budget increases for social services, several hospital closures, a drastic reduction in the number of available psychiatric beds, the tightening of welfare qualifications, cutbacks to the family allowance, higher prices, wage controls, Unemployment Insurance Commission crackdowns, and a lack of capital funding available for nursing homes, old-age homes, daycare centres, and detoxification centres.⁵  

In addition to exacerbating the issue of low wages and high workloads for social service workers, most of whom were women, Nellie’s staff argued that government cutbacks significantly increased demand on Toronto women’s shelters which were already struggling to function at capacity (At this time, Toronto had 1,184 permanent emergency beds for men, while only 77 were allotted specifically to women)⁶.  Understaffing at Nellie’s had led to exhaustion, deteriorating sanitary conditions, and a lack of security precautions which meant continued break-ins and physical danger for the residents and staff working overnight, several of whom had already been “beaten up.”⁷

To dramatize these issues, Nellie’s staff decided to “occupy” the shelter, meaning that no woman in need would be turned away from the hostel until they received adequate funding from the local and provincial governments. They sought community donations of food, blankets, mattresses, and clothing to fund the occupation, which lasted for two months and saw Nellie’s operating nearly 200% of their allotted beds, using mattresses spread out across the floor.⁸  Of course, this tactic strained Nellie’s already beleaguered staff, who had been working 60-75 hours per week without benefit of overtime pay.⁹  Nevertheless, as stated in an anonymous article about the occupation published by The Other Woman in September 1976, “radical rhetoric must be followed by radical action.”¹⁰

At the beginning of the occupation, another Nellie’s staff member, Liz Greaves, showed a large pile of referral letters to The Globe & Mail’s Kathleen Rex. These letters had come from Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto General Hospital, Toronto East General Hospital, Etobicoke General, the Alcoholics Research Foundation, and police officials, all of whom frequently referred destitute women to Nellie’s. Police Constable Michael Majury agreed that “Nellie’s is the first place [that] police at 51 Division think of.”¹¹  During the occupation, despite the city’s clear reliance on the hostel, Metro Social Services commissioner sought to discredit Nellie’s by claiming they were “poorly run” and that staff had mismanaged their finances. Tomlinson also claimed, in defiance of the workers’ experience at numerous Toronto women’s hostels including Nellie’s, Interval House, Women in Transition, and the YWCA, that “we haven’t increased the supply of women’s beds because, to date, there hasn’t been a demand.”¹²  

Throughout the occupation, Nellie’s also organized several speak-outs and marches on Toronto City Hall and Queen’s Park, where they connected the government’s social service cuts to society’s devaluation of women’s labour in general. According to staff at Nellie’s, cutbacks to social services sought to bolster the economy on the backs of Canadian women, including mothers, nurses, counsellors, and social service workers: “The consistent refusal to recognize these services as a social necessity which deserve adequate funding betrays the fact that they are seen as mere ‘women’s work’ and run unceremoniously on a pool of cheap female labour – the same one that works for nothing in the home.”¹³

Despite claustrophobic conditions created by the occupation, the mood at Nellie’s remained steadfastly defiant; manifestos covered the walls inside, and a large white banner with the words “Occupation Nellie’s” on it hung from the trees out front.¹⁴  Ultimately, the occupation ended in October 1976 when Toronto Metropolitan Social Services agreed to supply the hostel with $7,000 of additional funding, and the Federal government provided Nellie’s with a temporary one-year grant which allowed them to hire more staff. After the occupation, Nellie’s continued to push governments for long-term funding contributions to Toronto’s emergency women’s hostels.¹⁵  Nearly fifty years later, Nellie’s Hostel is still standing, and continues to provide essential services for women; Nevertheless, the twin crises of homelessness and addiction have skyrocketed in Ontario due to similar government cutbacks in recent years, and the province’s care workers are forced to accept low wages “for the cause” – as Fainstat argued back in 1976, “Dedication becomes a blackmail used against us.”¹⁶

Does the militant history of Nellie’s Hostel suggest that alternative solutions are possible?
 

Notes

1. Nellie’s Hostel Staff. “Emergency Occupation at Nellie’s Women’s Hostel,” Petition Form (26 August 1976) Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
2. Nellie’s Hostel. “Herstory,” https://www.nellies.org/about/herstory/
3. Paula Fainstat. “Notes on Nellie’s and Alternative Services” (1976) Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
4. Paula Fainstat. “Letter to the Editor” (26 February 1976), The Globe & Mail, Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
5. Ibid; France Wyland, “Wages for housework” (9 March 1976), The Globe & Mail, Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
6. Nellie’s Hostel Staff. “Fact Sheet for Nellie’s Occupation” (August 1976) Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
7. Margaret Mironowicz, “Mattresses on the floor, drapes for blankets: No woman turned away as Nellie’s battles for government support” (25 September 1976) The Globe & Mail, Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
8. Ibid.
9. Kathleen Rex. “Mayor’s aide visits Nellie’s: Overcrowded hostel pleads for financing” (28 August 1976) The Globe & Mail, Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
10. Unknown Author, “Women’s Hostel Fights Back Against Cutbacks” (Sep-Oct 1976) The Other Woman, vol. 4, no. 5, Canadian Women's Movement Archives collection (10-001), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
11. Rex, “Mayor’s aide visit Nellie’s.”
12. David Miller, “Unfair to Metro: Women’s hostel called poorly run” (1 September 1976) The Toronto Star, Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
13. Fainstat, “Notes on Nellie’s.”
14. Bruce Blackadar, “Nellie’s show of strength” (31 August 1976) The Toronto Sun, Frances Gregory fonds (10-094), University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
15. Wages for Housework Campaign Bulletin (Spring 1977), vol. 1, no. 3, RiseUp! Feminist Digital Archive, http://riseupfeministarchive.ca/wp-content/uploads/WagesforHousework-Spring1977-CampaignBulletin-1.pdf
16. Fainstat, “Notes on Nellie’s.”