Planning Shelter Service Spaces and Structures for Resilience: A Spatial Analysis of Women’s Shelters During COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: Globally, domestic violence against women increased in severity over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shelters supporting women experiencing temporary homelessness due to violence had to make major changes in service delivery to accommodate pandemic protocols, including how many families could stay in shelter, where they were allowed to reside, and how they were, and were not, able to interact with shelter staff and the outside world. The present study used a novel approach to spatial analysis to understand how pandemic protocols affected shelter space use. Method: Floor plans and written pandemic protocols were submitted by 15 women’s shelters in Ontario, Canada. Each pandemic protocol was analyzed and mapped onto its respective floor plans to determine how much space was lost under different modes of operation: normal (pre-pandemic), physical distancing (using pandemic protocols), and quarantine (using pandemic protocols during an outbreak). Three types of shelter space were analyzed to understand what types of spaces shelters were losing: Primary (bedrooms, bathrooms, and laundry areas), Secondary (community areas and staff offices), and Tertiary (hallways and storage). Findings: All 15 shelters lost space, with an average of 27% of net area lost overall (range 7%-56%). Within the three types of space, 18% of Primary, 48% of Secondary, and <1% of Tertiary space was lost. Key factors influencing space loss were the type of protocol used and the existing layout of the shelter space. Conclusions: Recommendations for shelter space planning in the context of rapidly evolving public health requirements are provided.

Keywords

• domestic violence; women’s shelters; pandemics; covid-19; space analysis; built environment; architecture