Newfoundland woman was 'living in fear' in a for-profit shelter. She was killed there

Rayna Dove's mother says she was 'living in fear' in a shelter in downtown St. John's, N.L.. On Dec. 27, 2021, Dove's fears came true. She died there in the early morning hours, stabbed in the abdomen by another resident, David Quirke.

Rayna Dove kept careful notes about her attempts to move out of the shelter in downtown St. John's, N.L., where her mother says she was "living in fear."

On Dec. 27, 2021, Dove's fears came true. She died there in the early morning hours, stabbed in the abdomen by another resident, David Quirke.

Joan Dunphy, Dove's mother, told a courtroom last month that her daughter's journals contained detailed entries about how afraid she was at the shelter, which is owned by a private landlord who is paid by the province to provide rooms to vulnerable people with nowhere else to live.

"She had voiced her concerns to her social worker and had requested a safer place to live," Dunphy read in a victim impact statement during a sentencing hearing in provincial Supreme Court. "There was a list of names that she had also contacted looking for safety .... These journal notes show how hard she was trying. But was anybody listening?"

Leaving aside Ontario, where the government could not provide clear confirmation, Newfoundland and Labrador is the only province to contract private landlords to provide shelter for its homeless population. In 2023, it paid these landlords more than $2.7 million, a 55 per cent jump from the previous year. The money went to three operators, who run seven shelters combined, with a collective capacity of 79 beds, said a spokesperson for the province's housing corporation.

Dove wrote in her journal that the door to her floor didn't have a lock. She wrote about feeling scared and unsafe, and that she was desperate to be given a better place to stay, her mother said.

Since her death, media coverage has raised concerns about these shelters, and the Newfoundland and Labrador government has promised change. Two homeless encampments sprang up last year in St. John's where many residents said they felt safer in tents than in for-profit shelters.