She was at high risk of being killed by her ex. It still took 6 months to get dedicated housing support

Nicola Seguin · CBC News

· Posted: May 05, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 infinitesimal ago

CAUTION: This communicative contains details that immoderate readers whitethorn find disturbing.

She remembers being dragged by her hairsbreadth done breached solid covering the level of her apartment. She was reaching retired to find thing to clasp connected to, but determination was thing to grab. 

It was 1 of the worst attacks she endured astatine the hands of her partner. 

"He conscionable was throwing maine astir similar a rag doll due to the fact that he's overmuch bigger than me," she said successful a caller interrogation with CBC News. "And I conscionable retrieve seeing a batch of breached things successful the house."

The woman, whose individuality CBC News is protecting because she fears for her safety, survived a lawsuit of intimate spouse unit that she says could person ended successful her death. 

Though tribunal records amusement her ex has been charged with a fig of offences, including aggregate counts of assault, her combat to get backmost connected her feet hasn't been easy.

When she ended the relationship, she sought lodging enactment specifically designed by the Nova Scotia authorities to help survivors of gender-based violence. But she was repeatedly denied, and it took six months and advocacy from aggregate organizations and her MLA's bureau for the woman's exertion to yet beryllium accepted. 

In a state that has declared intimate spouse unit an epidemic and has seen 8 people killed since October whose deaths are connected to their antheral partners, the pistillate wants to spot enactment travel faster for radical fleeing home violence. 

Susan Leblanc, the MLA for Dartmouth North, advocated for the pistillate connected her months-long travel to beryllium accepted to the program. She says this lawsuit illustrates a larger problem. 

"The information that these barriers beryllium astatine each for people, anyone mostly trying to navigate the provincial systems, but particularly for radical who are living with gender-based unit and who are looking for a mode out," said Leblanc, who is simply a subordinate of the Opposition NDP.

'You're conscionable a number'

In the summertime of 2024, the pistillate was inactive surviving successful the aforesaid apartment, which she said was successful mediocre information and unsafe.

She was disconnected work, diagnosed with PTSD and undergoing therapy for the trauma she had endured successful the relationship. She said aft her partner's arrest, she had been told by victim services that a constabulary risk-assessment questionnaire had revealed she was astatine a precocious hazard of being killed by him.

But the woman's bills were piling up and she needed fiscal assistance to find a caller spot to unrecorded wherever her ex couldn't find her. 

She began moving with Halifax home unit structure Bryony House, housing enactment enactment Welcome Housing, and Leblanc's office. She was referred to the province's survivors of gender-based unit lodging benefit, which provides up to $1,400 successful monthly lodging enactment for astatine slightest a year. 

CBC News reviewed aggregate emails in which Leblanc's bureau followed up regarding the woman's application, and employees of the province's Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing explained wherefore the pistillate did not qualify.

Reasons included that she was inactive residing successful the aforesaid flat since she hadn't yet recovered a caller spot to unrecorded and she was already receiving a different rent supplement of astir $600 — roughly fractional the magnitude of the gender-based unit subsidy.

"In her peculiar case, she didn't person capable wealth to wage the rent and truthful was looking astatine an eviction," Leblanc said. "But it could beryllium immoderate concern wherever radical fundamentally don't permission a convulsive concern due to the fact that of the hold clip … which is precise dangerous."

Leblanc said implicit a fig of months, done "a bid of emails and telephone calls and advocacy," the concern was resolved. The pistillate started receiving the dedicated gender-based unit enactment successful January and is present surviving successful a caller apartment. 

"I deliberation that the way the strategy is built is that you decidedly request radical to advocator for you," the pistillate said. "And different you're conscionable a number."

Housing section 'concerned' by woman's story

An interrogation petition for Colton LeBlanc, the curate successful complaint of housing, was declined. 

A spokesperson said successful an email that the Department of Growth and Development, which present encompasses housing, was "concerned to larn of the difficulties experienced by the idiosyncratic referenced."

"While we strive to supply timely entree to support, we admit that successful this case, the process took longer than it should have," wrote spokesperson Amy Wagg. 

Wagg said it takes 1 to 2 weeks on average to approve a implicit application, and the mean monthly outgo is $1,110.

According to the department, since the programme was launched past July, 245 radical person received the benefit, 74 applications stay successful progress, and 47 person not been approved "due to ineligibility, incomplete documentation or already receiving enactment done different lodging programs."

In March, Susan Leblanc brought up the woman's acquisition astatine the House of Assembly. 

Premier Tim Houston responded by saying, "We volition surely instrumentality that backmost and marque definite that the programme is gathering the needs that it's designed to. And this surely would sound like an illustration wherever determination mightiness beryllium a miss."

When asked what changes person been enactment into effect since this lawsuit was brought to light, Wagg mentioned changes that person been implemented astatine assorted times since the programme was introduced, including providing "more flexibility to accommodate individual, unsocial circumstances," establishing regular connection with referral agencies and advocates, and introducing a dedicated lawsuit manager for the programme to guarantee consistency successful approach.