As former students of residential schools begin receiving compensation cheques from the federal government, front-line workers at a Yellowknife women's shelter are getting ready for what they say could be busy and tough times ahead.

"We're aware [of] that possibility of [an] increase of drug and alcohol use, which also increases the risks at the shelter for the women that will reside here," Cavelle MacNeil, the housing and programs director with the Centre for Northern Families, told CBC News in an interview.

Since September, former students have been applying for payments under the federal government's $1.9-billion compensation package. It's estimated about 80,000 former students across Canada, including more than 1,700 in the Northwest Territories, are eligible for compensation.

To date, more than 200 recipients in the N.W.T. have received their payments, with cheques averaging $22,000 each.

Many former students seeking compensation say they endured physical, sexual and psychological abuse while attending 130 church-run and federally funded residential schools for aboriginal Canadians from the 1870s to the 1970s.

MacNeil said of the 27 women who can stay at the Yellowknife shelter on a given night, many are former students who have fallen on hard times.

"I'd say a very large portion of our women deal with trauma and addiction," she said.

She noted that the compensation cheques will mark the first time many former students will have to deal with large amounts of money.

With more cheques on the way, that could translate into physical violence "that transpires from [the] ongoing use of drugs and alcohol," MacNeil warned.

"Being able to maintain a safe environment is probably one of my biggest fears," she said.

MacNeil said she expects to boost staffing at the centre once all recipients receive their compensation cheques. In the meantime, she said, staff are trying to prepare women for their compensation money by teaching them how to budget: "the necessities that they need versus what they don't need, what are our wants," she said.

"So we try in every way, dealing with these women when they do end up getting money some way, somehow."