Women’s Shelter encouraged by last year of service

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on September 20, 2025.

asmith@medicinehatnews.com

The Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society is looking to the future and feeling grateful at their annual general meeting on Thursday.

This year was a fairly big year for the society both in terms of accomplishments and in terms of their yearly audit, which reported a significant uptick in cashflow both in and out as of the audit date of March 31. This was attributed to the construction happening at the Phoenix Emergency Shelter, while not finished by March, did conclude earlier this fall.

MHWSS is relaunching their Capital Campaign to better reflect the current state of the plan now that the construction is complete, with new marketing materials for prospective donors. It is the hope this will help to raise the remaining two million dollars required to fully cover the cost of the construction.

“I’d like the community to know that we’re so thankful for all they’ve done to get us to this point,” said Natasha Carvalho, Executive Director of MHWSS.

She acknowledges they came to the community with a large request, and have been blown away by the response.

“I’d really like to give a shoutout to the city, because they’re one of our biggest donors at $1.85 million. We wouldn’t be able to get this far without them,” said Carvalho. “We still need some more support, and they know that, but they’ve always been kind and generous to us, so I’m just hopeful that we can just start talking to new corporations or new places that maybe haven’t seen us yet.”

MHWSS is thrilled to be back in their facility, as it enables them to offer more options and programs for those who need it. She says operating dollars remain an ongoing topic, and they continue to advocate to the government, but overall they are optimistic that they will be able to cover the remaining capital costs and remain sustainable for years to come.

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