"A lot of women in rural areas actually have no access to help. The isolation, the distance away from towns and police makes it very difficult for people to reach out," said Diane Harris, executive director of Domestic Abuse Services Oxford (DASO), east of London. "We get a number of calls every day and we can't accommodate them here, so we're trying to do referrals out into the community, but the housing crisis also limits us. That's what scares me for women's lives."
"We are a very large geographic area and we don't have any buses to different municipalities," said Harris. "People have to rely on their own way of getting here. If we have an emergency we try to send out a cab but that doesn't always work, so people without cars can't make it here."
Marlene Ham, executive director of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH), says shelters were only meant to be an emergency measure but due to systemic barriers, are filling in the gap for other services.
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