Imagine living on just over $600 a month to pay for everything. Not easy.

Many of the women who take refuge at Chez Doris have to do just that. Some are homeless, while others live month to month on welfare.

While Chez Doris offers warm meals and daytime activities, the staff there is aiming for much more, but needs help to do it.

Forty years ago, the body of a young woman was found in a shed downtown, after she was brutally beaten and raped. Her name was Doris.

“She was a destitute woman in the 70s and there were no services for women back then. There were shelters strictly for men and so Chez Doris is one of the first organizations that opened to help women in trouble,” explained Marina Boulos, the centre’s interim executive director.

One of her social workers opened Chez Doris in her memory to be a safe haven for women with nowhere to go. Twenty per cent of their clientele is homeless, while 45 per cent have been homeless in the past

Doris’s life is now being commemorated for the good it inspired.

“This place helps for people who live alone and people who live in shelters a place to go in the daytime for arts and crafts and other activities,” said client Andrea Adelman.

It’s a place of refuge and peace that even includes a quiet room where women can sleep safely for a few hours.

“There are lots of places to go for a meal, there are shelters for the night but there is nowhere in the city where you can hang out and be safe during the day,” said Boulos. “These are women who had a very hard life, they're broken, they had a lot of mental health issues as well and they need to feel safe in a women's-only organization.”

Chez Doris also helps women to manage their money and find ways of surviving on social assistance with just over $600 per month.

“Not everyone has subsidized housing so it’s very hard to find them an apartment that is affordable for them -- and then groceries. After that, I mean how do you work with that? Sometimes they're left with $30 to $40 for the month,” said Chez Doris cheque administrator Allison Lemieux.

The staff welcomes up to 100 women per day from Monday to Friday, but is closed on weekends.

“We recently closed (on weekends) in the summer because of lack of funding. The demand has not kept pace with the funding that we receive. So we need to raise an additional $150,000 to reopen on the weekends,” said Boulos.

They are looking for volunteers to help in the kitchen, sort clothing, organize activities, and more.

Many clients are anxious about what they'll do on weekends come winter.

“Often I spend my days inside at the Grande Bibliotheque, and on the weekends I just don't eat,” said one woman.

The staff here is hoping to raise enough money to find enough volunteers to re-open on weekends soon.

Before she died, Doris said in an interview that all she wanted was, "a place to go without prying eyes and too many questions."

While she never got that, she inspired it for so many who would come after.