A 'safer' space: Investigating ways to improve emergency shelter services for transgender and non-binary clients

Abstract

Good Shepherd Women’s Services (GSWS) strives to provide safe, welcoming, and accommodating emergency shelter services to anyone who comes to their door. However, the organization’s leadership is aware of persistent safety and accessibility barriers that transgender and non-binary clients experience in the shelter system. GSWS commissioned the McMaster Research Shop to research the experiences of transgender and non-binary clients in the shelter system, as well as ways that shelter services can be adapted to better suit their needs. This report provides a summary of our findings and intends to inform GSWS’s service delivery, including tangible policy and practice changes to better accommodate transgender and non-binary clients.