Guelph-Wellington Women In Crisis is shocked that a free legal aid clinic for its clients has ended without any consultation or notification.
The legal aid clinic, provided by Legal Aid Ontario, saw a lawyer offer free family law advice to GWWIC clients every Monday morning.
Many of those clients were dealing with domestic violence situations, said GWWIC executive director Sly Castaldi.
"It was totally out of the blue," Castaldi said in a phone interview Sunday.
"We got a fax on Friday morning at 10 o'clock stating the fact that effectively immediately that the family law clinic that they were doing at women in cris was no longer happening."
No prior notice, no consultation for the ending of a program that had been running for over three years.
"I know hard decisions have to be made ... but this required a measured, informed approach about how best to do it."
"What we had with this particular situation was really, really effective. We've removed so many barriers for women experiencing domestic violence," Castaldi said. "Even though it was only from 9 a.m. to noon every Monday, it was a great little project."
Castaldi doesn't blame Legal Aid Ontario, who are dealing with recently-announced funding cuts from the provincial government. She fully acknowledges that they have "quite a difficult situation on their hands."
"But they could have called and said 'look, this is going to impact direct services, this is going to impact the clinic we do at your place. We have a month wind it down' or 'let's talk about it.' Anything would have been better than how it was done," Castaldi said.
She said one of the things she appreciates about Guelph and Wellington County is how the front line organizations have innovative projects, programs and ideas that they run with the smallest of resources.
There is still free legal advic available one day a week at the courthouse, Castaldi said, but the situation is not ideal for women just exiting stressful, possibly dangerous situations who need to feel comfortable and safe in their environment in order to best deal with things.
The courthouse can be intimidating, she said. The clinic at the centre removed barriers.
"It wasn't working before, that's why we created this project," Castaldi said. "Having this cut off abruptly is just going to make it harder for people."
It was with somewhat gallows humour that Castaldi saw the irony in that the decision, which she sees as a step backwards, was delivered by fax.
"I would really have appreciated a phone call or a conversation so we could try and figure out something else," Castaldi said.
She said she will be spending this week trying to figure out the next steps and figure out how to move forward.
"Trying to ge some answers and trying to figure out some stuff," Castaldi said. "As always, we'll do what we can to try to figure out alternatives to see if there is anything that we can do."
This morning we were notified by fax that effective immediately @legalaidontario will no longer be providing family law services @gwwic . This was a vital service for women dealing with domestic violence. Cuts hurt the most vulnerable!#onpoli
— Sly Castaldi (@slycastaldi) July 5, 2019
