Finding Your True North Through Growth and Expansion

The Cause

Established in 1993 and located 35 minutes east of Calgary in Strathmore, Alberta, the True North Society is a registered non-profit organization that provides ongoing support and services to individuals and families who are affected by family violence. We are committed to a vision of interrupting the cycle of abuse through empowerment to create a safe environment for all. We look forward to a future where our community is free of violence and citizens are empowered to resolve conflict in peaceful and productive ways.
Our success is achieved by offering a slate of programming that is diverse and reflective of the needs of the families and community we serve. This includes an emergency shelter program that temporarily houses up to 25 individuals and/or families as well as outreach, early intervention and public education programming that serves the community at large. We are considered a valuable service provider in the community and are a member of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters (ACWS). Since the very beginning, True North has served all genders who are fleeing domestic violence. Additionally, True North has an MOU with Siksika Nation, where we partner to provide supports both On-Reserve and Off-Reserve in our Emergency Shelter and Outreach programs to Indigenous Families who are fleeing domestic violence and seeking to achieve safety. No matter how anyone chooses to identify, including family structure, we seek to provide trauma-informed and client-centered supports to help people break the cycle and create a brighter future and safer community for all.

In 2021, True North recognized a need, and during 2021 Strategic Planning, we identified that we would seek to expand and build a new building to include 36 studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom units. This was based on data collection and observation that indicated longer length of stays, more turn aways and increased need for high-quality mental health supports to support families in achieving longer-term safety and stability, their basic needs, mental wellness and resilience. In 2022, we purchased land and used our remaining restricted funds to hire an Architectural firm and Project Management team to design our building. To date, we have a Class A estimate (designs are 90% complete), and now we need to launch a capital campaign to fund raise the remaining funds ($30M) to move forward with our build.

Who Will it Benefit?

Children, individuals and Indiegnous populations who are fleeing domestic violence situations in the Wheatland County region. The Housing crisis has created many challenges for people to transition from Emergency Shelter. People have nowhere else to go and it leaves them with the only option as returning to their abusive or unsafe situation. This is not a solution and we must help them avoid making this decision by providing the shelter and services they need. In addition to that, we would truly be breaking the cycle by keeping children out of unsafe situations and preventing further abuse from occurring, giving space for high-quality supports and resources to help heal trauma and create resilience. This year past fiscal year (23/24), we served over 6, 000 individuals across all programs. We had 1, 959 total calls to our crisis line, 1,079 shelter admission requests, 901 individuals and families were turned away with almost 2/3 being due to capacity. Remaining turn ways were due to calls that did not fit our mandate or supports requested that are beyond the scope of our current operations. Our average length of stay increased from 18 days to 24 days last year and only 18% of clients were discharged to transitional housing out of the 62 individuals and 102 children that were served. Housing continues to remain a critical issue, sadly, because of the current state of inflation and lack of affordable housing. We remain dedicated to providing inter-disciplinary and high-quality support to our community. We endeavor to continue to collaborate with stakeholders, other community agencies and key regional partners. We know we cannot do this alone, and we know that if we can build an affordable housing project we will be able to better address the needs of those fleeing domestic violence and provide care to families, individuals, and children that will help us address the challenges our organization, team, sector and families are experiencing. With more comprehensive mental health supports available, and an increase in our ability to serve more people with low-barrier early intervention and prevention supports and services, we can help people break the cycle, and create a more resilient future for all. This project will help impact early childhood development, and create more protective factors for families who are experiencing violence and decrease future experiences of adversity. This project will be impact thousands of families and individuals into the future.