OTTAWA / TORONTO (Reuters) – For 15 years, Halima has supported herself and her three children by working long hours caring for elderly clients in retirement homes or personal residences in Toronto.
But as COVID-19 infections increased last year, Halima’s hours were reduced because care workers in Ontario were limited to working only in one establishment and suddenly monthly rent could not be afforded. of $ 1,800 ($ 1,407) in his apartment.
Halima, who asked to be identified only by her first name, has managed to keep a roof over her head by cutting food. As a part-time worker, she has no paid benefits or sick days.
“Food and rent, everything is very expensive. It’s hard to live now, “Halima said in an interview.
Canada is struggling to tame a second wave of COVID-19 and stop the spread of new variants. The elderly have suffered the brunt of the pandemic: 70% of Canada’s more than 20,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been in long-term care homes.
Personal support workers (PSWs) have long struggled with housing insecurity in expensive Canadian cities, but the pandemic has made the situation worse for many, forcing some to become homeless and homeless others nearby, according to workers, shelter administrators, union officials and health advocates.
At the center of their struggle are low wages and fewer hours amid pandemic restrictions that prevent them from working in various care centers. The problem is more serious among part-time workers in for-profit care homes.
In populated Ontario, the majority of PSWs are women and approximately 60% work in for-profit care homes, many in part-time, high-rotation jobs, according to a recent report by the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
Some pay almost the minimum wage, that is, they earn barely even full-time hours to border on the poverty level of a single person without dependents. A recent survey found that 67% of PSWs reported now earning less to take away than before the pandemic.
Even full-time care workers earning the average wage in Ontario would fall below the poverty level of a family of four in Toronto.
“I suspect people who were on one or two salaries from the homelessness experience … now don’t have that isolation,” said Naheed Dosani, a physician and health justice activist in Toronto.
Dosani added that the “broken” system that pushes front-line workers, including essential health professionals, into the homelessness situation is also a risk to the health of the community, as workers could carry COVID- 19 from shelters to shelters and back.
In fact, last year there was an outbreak at a homeless shelter in Ottawa, which took place in two women who had long-term care work but lived in the shelter.
“They just can’t make enough money to afford Ottawa’s rental circumstances,” Dr. Jeff Turnbull, Ottawa Inner City Health’s medical director, told a commission investigating COVID-19 at service homes in Ottawa. Ontario in late December.
“And so they took COVID from a long-term care center to shelters where we had an outbreak,” Turnbull said.
There are no official statistics on PSW living in shelters and other emergency housing, although front-line staff in Ottawa and Toronto told Reuters it is a growing problem.
At Cornerstone Housing for Women in Ottawa, shelter use is up 47.5% compared to the pre-pandemic, said executive director Sarah Davis. The organization now serves about 200 women a day and approximately 5% of them are front-line workers, including professional workers.
“Women try to save money and (living in shelters) is one of the only options they could have,” Davis said.
Cornerstone and three other Ottawa shelters stopped welcoming new customers this week due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
In British Columbia, the province introduced pandemic surcharges of up to $ 7 C / hour and guaranteed hours. Ontario, Alberta and others did not protect the hours, resulting in less work and less income for many workers, unions say.
The situation is particularly harsh in Ontario, where rents are high and where many for-profit care homes prefer to keep workers on part-time contracts rather than taking on full-time staff costs.
“In some of these homes, 70% of the workforce is part-time. Why do they want them part time? Because they don’t have to pay for time and sickness due to illness, ”said Katha Fortier, a senior official at Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union.
Low wages and the precarious nature of PSW work are not exclusive to Canada. Most long-term care workers in OECD countries are women and a large part are part-time, according to a 2019 OECD document. A significant number have several jobs to achieve this.
However, Canada spends less than the OECD average on long-term care as a percentage of GDP: 1.3% compared to 1.7%, according to OECD data.
In Vancouver, Canada’s most expensive real estate market, Agnes Pecson lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, adult daughter and teenage son.
Pre-pandemic, Pecson worked 55 hours a week between two jobs. He now works full time at one and even with BC’s pay top-up, he barely gets it.
“We just live payroll to payroll,” Pecson said.
($ 1 = $ 1.2727)
Reports by Julie Gordon in Ottawa and Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto, Additional Reports by Allison Lampert in Montreal, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Sarah Berman in Vancouver; Edited by Steve Scherer and Andrea Ricci