The year is 1897. A young countrywoman arrives at the Vancouver train station hoping to find education and employment in the big city. Instead, she finds herself hungry, homeless and broke. She has no friends or family to whom she can turn. Enter the YWCA, a newly established organization in Vancouver that offers housing, work and traveller’s aid to unemployed women new to the city. Soon, she is out on her own and has become a productive member of society.
Fast forward to today. She is the pregnant teen confronting her drug addiction and learning to parent effectively. She is the immigrant mother leaving an abusive relationship for a safe home and support network. She is the aboriginal high school student striving for a rewarding career with an inspiring mentor cheering her on. She is the career woman finally finding that elusive work-life balance and deciding to start a family. Today, the YWCA has 52 programs that help these women and many others. In 2009, they reached 54,000 people.
For more than a century, the YWCA has been at the forefront of tackling the challenges faced by women in Vancouver through advocacy and front-line services that foster economic independence, wellness and equal opportunities. A true trailblazer, the YWCA was the first organization to offer women physical fitness programs in the early 1900s (a controversial decision at the time, as exercise was believed to damage reproductive organs) and was also one of the first to reach out to women and children in the Downtown Eastside.
Every decade, the non-profit organization—one of the largest and most diverse in Vancouver—has evolved to address the urgent needs of women in the community and offer a leading voice towards change. One thing that hasn’t changed is the organization’s goal: achieving equality for women. And today, YWCA Vancouver CEO Janet Austin says the most pressing issue facing Vancouver women is the lack of affordable, high-quality early learning and child-care programs.
“There is no more fundamental thing we can do to create equality in society—and deal with the social issues in the Downtown Eastside, child poverty and violence against women—than make an early investment in children,” says Austin, who’s been at the helm of the YWCA for eight years. “It will set them up for success in school and in life.”
To underpin the urgency of creating a system that provides universal access to early learning and care, Austin points to a key finding from UBC’s 2009 Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) report titled 15 by 15: 29 per cent of B.C. children are vulnerable, meaning they start kindergarten without meeting the developmental benchmarks they need to thrive.
“We’ll never level the playing field for these children unless we look at the conditions that are creating the child-vulnerability rate and put in place some mechanisms that will address it,” says Austin. “That’s very much at the core of what our overall work is and that leads us to advocate for things like affordable housing, income support for single mothers, family-friendly workplaces and work-life balance.”
Austin, who sits on the board of directors for the Vancouver Board of Trade, says an important part of her job is rallying support from business leaders and policy-makers by demonstrating that many of our social issues are also core economic challenges. They listen when Austin tells them the child-vulnerability rate will dramatically deplete our future stocks of human capital and cause the province to forgo 20 per cent in GDP growth over the next 60 years (also according to HELP’s 15 by 15 report). Access to early learning and care will have a ripple effect, Austin explains, leading to greater employment of women, higher incomes and taxes, savings to our social welfare and health care systems and, eventually, equality
for women.
The provincial government has committed to lowering the rate of child vulnerability to 15 per cent by 2015, and a YWCA poll shows 88 per cent of British Columbians support the goal. Austin says the government’s move to all-day kindergarten was a very productive step, but much more needs to be done. For its part, the YWCA operates four early learning and care centres and provides a range of safe, affordable housing solutions for single mothers.
Austin, who is passionate about housing and sustainability, and who previously managed the provincial government’s social housing portfolio, is also excited about two new YWCA housing projects in the works. Austin’s goal is for the developments, one in Surrey and the other in Coquitlam, to achieve LEED environmental certification and give families a green home in which to grow. Austin beams when she discusses recent capital improvements at the YWCA hotel that cost around $500,000, but will be recovered in five years of operating savings and have resulted in a 76 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s a really good example of how it’s the right thing to do, but it also makes good business sense,” says Austin. “If you want any initiative to last, you need to be able to marry those two principles.” It’s that entrepreneurial spirit that’s at the heart of all of the YWCA’s work.
