Where do you go when you feel you have nowhere?
Water, food, shelter: these are the three necessities of life. To be without even one is a terrifying prospect. But to be alone, lost and without anything you need to make it to tomorrow?
Where would you go if you had nowhere?
Rosemary didn’t want to go home.
Rosemary lived for nearly two decades with emotional and financial abuse: forced to pay bills and work a second job as a live-in caregiver for her abusers.
When she finally got out, just to go to the hospital for surgery, she realized she couldn’t — she wouldn’t — ever go back.
That’s what she told the social worker, sitting there in her recovery.
Where would she go if she had nowhere?
The Unison Elder Abuse Shelter is place for those who feel that way: those who have the tight grip of a terrible situation beyond comprehension bearing down on all sides. Like a vice.
It’s a way out. One more and more seniors sorely need.
It’s estimated one in 10 seniors will be the victims of elder abuse in Alberta.
There are about 715,000 seniors — folks over the age of 65 — in Alberta. If one in 10 will be the victims of elder abuse, that’s roughly 71,500 people.
The Unison Elder Abuse shelter has 14 beds.
Moreover, with the current housing crisis, older adults are needing to stay longer in our shelter, as it’s harder to find long-term housing.
2023 was the first time we had a client who stayed for over a full year.
But there is hope.
Rosemary, after eight months, has finally got the keys to her new home.
It’s a full lease on life. Rosemary is beyond excited about being able to take the reins, having control and agency over what she wants to do, when she wants to do it.
Freedom.
And it’s all thanks to the Unison Elder Abuse Shelter.
Where do people go when they have nowhere?
They come here.
And with your donations, we can help more and more seniors take their lives back.
