Not Every Mom Wakes to Breakfast in Bed on Mother's Day

OTTAWA, ON — This Sunday, a common scene will play out across the city. Young kids sneaking into their parent’s bedroom, a precarious tray of food balanced between them. Older children hiding the perfect gift they spent days planning. Adults gathering in prime brunch spots across the city, a bashful grin crossing their face when they realize the visit may be a tad overdue. It’s Mother’s Day, and many in our city will be celebrating.

And while that’s not the case for everyone, for some, Sunday morning is even further from that reality. Imagine, instead, your mother waking in a shared room, three other women sleeping in the bunkbeds beside her. Her time in the bathroom is rushed, with other people waiting on it. The room is crowded, leaving her less privacy than she’d like. When she makes her way downstairs, she finds a continental breakfast -- lovingly crafted, but far from an indulgence. This is her morning every day at Cornerstone Housing for Women’s emergency shelter, but it’s made all the more stark today on Mother’s Day.

And yet, in some ways, she’s one of the lucky ones. One of the 165 women who found space in a shelter for the night. The rest have had to be turned away.

At Cornerstone Housing for Women, we are working to stem this issue. In 2024, we expanded our shelter from 61 beds to 165 beds, a big move, but not yet enough. We are still full nearly every night. We have built and staffed four supportive housing units, providing an additional 150 women with a safe place to live. Women like Nathalie, one of the people who live at Cornerstone’s Princeton Residence in Westboro.

Nathalie is thinking about her own mother this weekend, and the strength she learned from her. Nathalie’s mother passed away when she was just 18, and years later, Nathalie found herself living on the streets, accessing shelter services like so many of the women in our shelter today. That is, until she found herself accepted into our supportive housing in 2018. Now, she is spending this Mother’s Day surrounded by an inclusive and supportive community of women. She is no longer left behind.

We cannot move these women out of our shelter alone. Nathalie has only found success thanks to the incredible support of the federal government and other partners who helped us build our four supportive housing communities. We were grateful to receive funding in 2024 for our newest building on Eccles, opening up space to support even more women, but our work is far from over. With a new Liberal minority and a changing political landscape, we need the government to not only continue this work, but to do more. We cannot solve the housing crisis without supportive housing.

Change is coming, and in many ways, the political landscape is divided. But on this Mothers’ Day, as more and more mothers are seeking space in shelters, more and more mothers are needing our support, we hope we can put aside those differences and continue to fund supportive housing. Maybe then, one day, we won’t have to turn anyone away.

Support Women This Mother's Day with a Donation to Cornerstone