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“So if you look at like even just a safe house, you know there’s no safe house in Sturgeon County, there’s nothing in Thornhill County, and there’s nothing in Smokey Lake County,” said Hughson. “So if you think geographically of the area, it really is limited in what they can access for domestic violence supports. We could be filling a huge gap.”

Rosychuk said her daughter was faced with wait times of two to four months to access Edmonton shelters, the closest ones to her community. Even if Martel had gotten in, Rosychuk said she would have had to leave her children.

“When we did try to reach out to the shelters in the city, which were not ideal because it would remove her and her children from all the resources and things that she had available to her in her community, the doors there were shut,” said Rosychuk.

The latest numbers from Statistics Canada show Alberta had the third-highest rate of intimate partner violence out of all provinces in 2017. Ian Wheeliker, director of programs with the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters, said women in rural and remote areas, as well as indigenous and new or immigrant women, face additional barriers, such as lack of services, to leaving abusive relationships.

Wheeliker said more than 10,000 people accessed emergency shelters across the province last year while close to 15,000 were turned away due to a lack of space.

“In a nutshell, this shelter is going to save lives,” said Wheeliker. “It’s extremely rare for women who access shelter services across Canada, across North America in fact, to end up murdered. So they access the bricks-and-mortar safety and security, then they access the services.”

Rosychuk said being able to open the shelter in Morinville is a way to continue to advocate for victims in Martel’s name and continue to write her story.

“We still really want to advocate for the issues that women and men are facing every day when it comes to domestic violence. Jessica’s story is going to have a happy ending,” said Rosychuk.

dshort@postmedia.com