Women’s Shelter

The North Country Women also saw the need to provide support for women in their community who needed shelter, especially women who were victims of domestic abuse. As such, in December of 1976, from a small apartment on Main Street the North Country Women’s Center was opened.

Group photo of the opening of the Women's Shelter in Canton N.Y. Photo Credit: "Women's Shelter," Women Together Vol. 4, Iss. 2 (November- December 1979)
Group photo of the opening of the Women’s Shelter in Canton N.Y. Source: Women Together, MSS. 180, Series 3, Folder 27, St. Lawrence University Special Collections.

At the shelter a range of important services were provided by staff and volunteers which included emergency housing for women and their children, legal services, a crisis line for counseling and assistance about available resources, and education about spousal abuse among others. During the first two years the shelter was in operation, more than hundreds of nights of emergency housing was provided to women and children. Due to the increased need of the service, the center was moved to a larger facility on Chapel Street and transformed into the Women’s Shelter, opening its doors on March 12, 1979. Today the legacy and impact of the Women’s Shelter can still be seen as it functioned as the precursor for the Renewal House in downtown Canton.

“There should always be a place to go for the woman who has been beaten, evicted, emotionally forced out or stranded. It should be a place where she can discover that she is not necessarily sick or to blame for her situation.”
“Women’s Shelter” Women Together 4, no. 2 (1979): 20.

Source of photos above: Women Together, MSS. 180, Series 3, Folder 27, St. Lawrence University Special Collections.

Click below to browse all of the Women’s Shelter images.