Women’s History Month: Interview with Executive Director of SOFIA House, Tmira Marchment

Our conversation with Tmira Marchment, Executive Director of SOFIA House, was eye opening in regards to the lack of support second stage housing gets from the Saskatchewan Government. Even with that barrier, Sofia House is doing amazing work within the community and their impact on the lives of individual women as well as their communities is seen with their expanding future. Here is our interview with SOFIA House.

What’s your story?

I was born and grew up here. I went to the University of Regina and got my bachelors and masters in social work. My personal career path was about how I can improve lives for women and children. I have worked in a variety of nonprofits throughout my work career, with women and children in mind. [When] this opportunity at Sofia House came up for me, it was about giving back to my community and working closer with the community than I had been in the past. I decided to take the plunge into a leadership position in a nonprofit. I am really glad I am here, it is a very good organization to work for.

What led you to being involved in SOFIA House?

Throughout my career it has always been really important to me to be in a position where I can be impactful and feel like I am helping the community. It’s really important to me to be able to uplift other women and families. In my previous work, I was getting into policy which was great too, but when this opportunity came up at Sofia house, it was more about giving back in a more impactful and frontline way. That’s why I decided to make that change and join Sofia House.

What has been the most inspiring moment that you’ve seen with SOFIA House?

When you see certain families that have really grown from the time that they came, to the time that they leave Sofia House. We have one family with one woman who has grown so much, who has come from a position where she came from another country with no support system and has really grown into her support systems; gotten her drivers license, moving on and becoming her definition of successful. It is really inspiring when you see it, and especially when you see people who have been here for so long and they are moving on and feeling really successful in their lives is truly inspiring.

Programs:

We are a second stage shelter for women and children who are fleeing violence. What that means is it is long term supportive housing, so everyone at Sofia House has their own apartment that they pay rent to stay at, then we provide programming while they're here. We have women’s programming that consists of one-on-one counseling, group counseling, advocacy help and anything that they need during their stay. We have children’s programming as well, it is one-on-one counseling, any assistance they need with teachers at school, counseling, other counseling we can refer them to, we absolutely do that. We also have cultural programming led by our Indigenous Relations Manager, because over 70% of our residents are indigenous. They can choose to work with the indigenous relations manager, called Healing from Within, as well as other cultural connections in the community to make sure people are healing in ways that they feel like they want to heal. We have a harm reduction program we just started. Sometimes people who have experienced violence also use substances to deal with the trauma and working from a more harm reduction approach provides women with more of a choice of working with someone while they are using.

What is the biggest barrier facing women in Regina?

There’s not a lot of long term housing, not just for women and children, but for everybody. Deeply affordable housing, housing that women can actually afford is a huge barrier for people in Regina. A lot of women in Regina and Saskatchewan are facing violence. Saskatchewan has one of the highest rates of gender based violence out of all the provinces. Crisis shelters are almost always full, people have nowhere to go after leaving the crisis shelters, and that’s where places like Sofia House and second stage housing can come into play with supportive services, but because there are not a lot of these spaces it is a huge barrier.

How do you think we can improve on affordable housing?

We can improve this by making sure that those supports are there. Really affordable housing that people can actually afford, as well as supportive housing right on site in more of a housing first principle where it’s not dependent on sobriety or anything like that. It is really important to remove those barriers. We need to continue to look for different solutions, I think second stage housing can be one of those solutions. Oftentimes, people who are experiencing violence are often experiencing homelessness and vice versa. People who have experienced homelessness have experienced violence. It’s important to keep that in mind. Second stage housing can provide that time and support to heal, and it’s a place for people to stay for years if necessary because trauma can take time to heal from.

SOFIA House is an acronym for “Support of Families in Affliction,” what does that mean to you?

I think that some of the language has changed over time, it has really changed since the 1980’s when we first opened. Overall it means supporting families that have experienced violence, [supporting families] in a variety of ways that is led by them. When we talk about our programming, our women’s programming, children's programming, cultural programming and harm reduction programming; none of these programs are mandatory. You don’t need to attend every session in order to stay here, people can come here and take what they need. I think that what is really important about supporting families is supporting them on their own journey, and not making them.

What are the long term consequences if we ignore the voices of women and children in long term housing?

If we keep ignoring the needs, we will continue to go in the cycle. I said Saskatchewan has one of the highest rates of gender based violence in Canada, [because of this] crisis shelters are always full and turning people away, [then] there's limited spaces for families to go when they leave the shelter, so continuing to ignore this perpetuates this cycle where people have nowhere to go or they can’t get into a crisis shelter if they need. We need to continue to look for solutions. Being able to offer this supportive housing right away is one of those solutions. If women can work and receive counseling and heal the way that they want to, and are resident led, then it’s really going to provide an opportunity for change. If people can stay for years at a time, their kids can stay for years at a time, [then] they can start learning about healthy relationships and break that cycle so that they are not potentially leaving a crisis shelter and going to another unsafe situation because there is nowhere else to go. I really think by breaking those cycles by providing long term supportive housing is really something we need to look at.

How long can someone stay here?

As long as they want. We have some people who stay for 6 months and they are ready to go on their own, and then we have people who have stayed for 3 years who are really in need of more support. There is no minimum or maximum on their stay.

Abusers will often abuse someone's pet as an extension of the violence, do you accept animals?

Yes, abusers can be violent towards pets, so we do accept animals. Many of the residents here do have pets, like cats. We also have two hedgehogs in the children's program area.

What do you think the future of SOFIA House is?

We’ve grown immensely in the last five years as an organization. Originally, we had ten spaces in one building that was owned by Regina Housing, then in July of 2020 we expanded into a second building with ten more suites owned by Avana that we control the lease of so we can provide a little bit more of that low barrier, if people are facing a lot of barriers to get into traditional housing. Just recently we announced we will be expanding again. We will be moving into a new building owned by Avana again, and it will have 39 suites for women and children facing violence. We are really excited to be moving into that new space. That need is so high in the community, we are almost always full and always have a waitlist. To be able to provide more space is something that is so needed in the community and we are really excited to be able to do that. In terms of our programming, we also want to keep digging deeper and ensuring that our programming is impactful. We ask ourselves if we are being impactful to the people that we serve, are we being supportive and how can we continue to involve residents in shaping that, how can we get more resources for support for people who need a higher level of support. I think also continuing to do the work on how to be an impactful allied organization, meaningfully working with Indigenous women, black women, and trans women, and how do we do that work and keep doing that work. We look into the privilege that we have as an organization and how we can make sure that we are doing that work so that we can be sure that we are effective allies.

How can women navigate power structures?

That is such a tough question because yes, power structures are something that have barriers that impact women. I think that just continuing to learn about power structures and how they impact women and continuing acknowledge that systemic power structures do serve to be such a barrier for women and indigenous people, and it’s so important to work together to break down those systems. Education and awareness is so important because once you learn and know about power and system structures, you can work to dismantle those.

How do you encourage women not to give up?

I think it's just having that support there when people need it and reminding them of how far that they have come, and how far they will continue to go by just continuing to be there to offer that support.

What do you want Regina to know about SOFIA House?

A lot of people probably know what Sofia House is, but they don’t necessarily know what we do in terms of providing that long term housing. Crisis shelters are so needed in our community, but we are not a crisis shelter, we are long term second stage supportive housing; the difference between crisis shelters and second stage housing. Also some of the barriers that we face as an organization that provides long term housing [is that] Saskatchewan is one of only two provinces in Canada whose government does not provide operational funding for second stage shelters. We don’t receive any core funding so all of funding comes from grants, contributions from the community, so in order to continue to run our programs we are really dependent on the community and fundraising and what grants we can receive.

What does equity mean to you?

Equity means to me recognizing that people have different resources. Not everybody's resources are equal. Some people have more barriers than other people, at no fault to themselves, and it’s up to people with these resources to realize that other people need to be able to access these resources as well. People with privilege need to be aware of this, and it’s not about giving people a seat at the table, but giving them a voice at the table that is actively heard.