Housing anxiety drives some to seek professional help
As hope fades that Metro Vancouver’s housing crisis will end any time soon, counsellors say they are helping more clients tackle the shame and misery that comes from sleeping in rodent-infested basement suites or staying with abusive partners while struggling to find a better home.
Clients are identifying housing as having a major impact on their relationships, mental health and well-being, said Michelle Crowley, a counsellor with Family Services of Greater Vancouver.
“We’re seeing more and more of it in recent years,” she said. “It’s just been such a growing concern.”
Crowley said about 90 per cent of her clients now bring up housing as one of their struggles, whether they’re in a government-subsidized apartment or a house with two working parents.
For many families, the cost of rent — more than $1,550 for the average two-bedroom apartment in Vancouver, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — eats up so much of their income they must cut back on groceries and can’t enrol their children in after-school activities or replace worn-out clothing.
“Even if someone says, ‘Yes, I’m securely paying rent every month,’ OK, well then, what else has had to be cut down because of it?” Crowley said. “There’s a whole cascade of problems that come from that one issue.”
Crowley told the story of a single mom staying in a tiny basement suite with no room for a full crib in her bedroom and sporadic heating. She was afraid that complaining to the landlord would lead to eviction in a region where the rental vacancy rate hovers below one per cent.
Another working single mom refused to complain to the Residential Tenancy Branch about rodents in her suite out of fear she would be unable to again find an affordable home on her meagre income.
Such stories are common, Crowley said. Often, she said, parents who are separated stay under the same roof, rather than uproot their children from their school and friends to move somewhere more affordable. Sometimes clients in abusive relationships refuse to leave their partners because they are terrified they won’t find a home at the income-assistance rate, Crowley said.
“It’s just awful,” she said. A study published in the December issue of Preventive Medicine found that persistent housing problems in the past are linked with poor mental health.
Crowley described housing as the “foundation for everything,” referring to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a theory that unless a person’s most basic physiological needs — including food and shelter — are met, a person cannot feel safety, love, esteem or self-actualization.
She said the shame that washes over clients with inadequate housing and the fear of losing it to renoviction hampers their efforts to better their situations. They sit in night courses unable to focus, and can’t devote the time to help their kids with homework or be good partners.
“They’re all trying to do their best, but when you’re facing absolutely ridiculous rent and a real shortage of housing in the city, it’s really hard,” she said.
People struggling with housing may feel isolated and without a sense of community, as though their resources and options are dwindling, Crowley said. But a counsellor can help them realize they are not alone and help break through the stigma that prevents them from seeking help from food banks, charities, social services and their neighbours.
Megan Sutherland, a registered clinical social worker and owner of Willow Tree Counselling in Vancouver, said more of her clients are struggling with anxiety because of the housing crisis.
“I really feel for people,” she said. “People don’t necessarily feel like they’re in a solid situation.”
Sutherland, who opened her private practice in 2009, said some clients stay in substandard housing out of concern they’ll never again find affordable rent. Many who live alone scrape together their rent by working multiple jobs.
She meets people with high skill sets who are underemployed, so she’ll work with them to identify practical measures and work through psychological hurdles to find a job with a higher salary, Sutherland said.
“Sometimes, it’s like this is a city of who you know, and whether it’s finding a job or finding a place, sometimes it’s all about your connections,” she said. “So how isolated are people? Are they out where they would actually meet people?”
For some, the best solution is a big change, such as moving into the suburbs to make long commutes, finding roommates or heading farther outside of the city to work remotely.
Even clients in a position to scrape together a down payment for a home are expressing sadness and frustration over the “generational issue” of not being able to afford property they way their parents and grandparents could, Sutherland said.
“The wish to have one’s own home — that’s a dying dream for people in Vancouver,” Sutherland said.