Open Letter: Prevent Gender Based Violence

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Open letter to provincial leaders and non-profit funders:

Organizations and workers at all levels of the anti-violence sector call on the provincial government to take urgent action supporting survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) in BC. Despite declaring GBV an epidemic 5 years ago, rates of GBV and of survivors seeking anti-violence services are skyrocketing without a matched increase in funding for anti-violence organizations providing these life-saving services. As a result, some of the most vulnerable members of our community in BC fail to receive the support they need. In 2025, at least 37 femicides occurred in BC. Within the first week of 2026, we saw two BC women killed by former or current intimate partners–Pamela Jarvis and Laura Gover. How many more will we lose this year?

Frontline workers in the anti-violence sector not only fight to prevent such violence through education and advocacy, they also provide a continuum of care to survivors of violence–including responding to crisis lines; assisting in safety planning; providing housing, legal, and mental health support; and many other services. But due to the unreliability and insufficiency of funding, the entire sector has been inundated with understaffing, low wages, overburdened workloads, unending wait lists, unsafe working conditions, and high turnover rates. This also impacts workers’ wellbeing, as they become burnt out due to stress, physical and psychological unsafety, vicarious trauma, overwork, and more.

These challenges stem from critical underfunding of the anti-violence sector and the unsustainability of the short-term, project-based grant funding model the sector relies on to operate. As our most recent research shows, organizations and workers are diverting valuable time and energy from service delivery to fundraising and other means of supplementing insufficient grant funding. The sector as a whole is thus poorly equipped and resourced to handle the increasing complexity of survivors’ needs. At the organizational level, lack of funding leads to staffing and retention issues, insufficient staff supports, and low compensation for workers, among myriad other challenges. All of these challenges impact frontline workers’ ability to continue working in the sector and help survivors. 

Anti-violence leaders and frontline workers were disappointed to see a lack of focus on GBV in the 2026 Budget, as it neither moved towards long-term, core funding for anti-violence non-profits, nor met another community demand for a 15% increase in emergency funding. In fact, the Budget rescinds $775 million for an essential Community Housing Fund, leaving non-profit organizations that spent thousands on applications unable to move forward in addressing BC’s housing crisis.

Our key recommendations include these:

• Increase and sustain funding for the anti-violence sector
• Improve services that cater to survivors from underserved or marginalized groups without reducing existing services and funding streams
• Ensure that all frontline workers in the anti-violence sector are paid a living wage
• Increase supply of and access to affordable housing for frontline workers and survivors
• Improve workload regulation and management

We call on BC’s provincial leaders to take accountability in protecting and supporting the anti-violence sector. Without meaningful systemic change and secure, stable funding, BC will continue to fail survivors of violence as organizations lack the staff, resources, housing, and core operational funding to support them. 

Signed,