ABSTRACT
In early 2002, the provincial Liberal party initiated widespread spending cuts to social services and health care. The women's B. C. Benefits subsidies were cut, and many of them said that they no longer felt safe or in control of their lives and feared that they could possibly become homeless. The government cuts that were rationalized under a rhetoric of fostering independence and getting recipients back to work had the opposite effect. They forced the women into more serious material deprivation and crisis, where they could only deal with their basic day-to-day survival. With the current political climate, Women Organizing Activities for Women (WOAW) sustainability is uncertain. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant provided crucial support to many WOAW members, meetings, and activities, and since most community services are struggling for their own survival, it is difficult to envision from where resources to support WOAW will come.
