Canada care workers struggle to make ends meet in pandemic
For 15 years, Halima has supported herself and her three children by working long hours taking care of elderly clients in retirement homes or in their personal residences in Toronto.
But as Covid-19 infections surged last year, Halima’s hours were slashed because care workers in Ontario were restricted to working in only one facility, and suddenly she could not afford the C$1,800 ($1,407) monthly rent on her apartment.
Halima, who asked to be identified by her first name only, has managed to keep a roof over her head by cutting back on groceries. As a part-time worker, she has no benefits and no paid 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 Coivd-19 and stop the spread of new variants. Seniors have borne the brunt of the pandemic: 70 per cent of Canada’s more than 20,000 Covid-19 deaths have been in longterm care homes.
Personal support workers (PSWS) have long wrestled with housing insecurity in expensive Canadian cities, but the pandemic has worsened the situation for many, pushing some into homelessness and leaving others teetering on the brink, according to workers, shelter administrators, union officials and health advocates.
At the heart of their struggle are low wages and fewer hours amid pandemic restrictions that do not allow them to work at multiple care homes. The problem is most acute among parttime workers at for-profit care homes.
In populous Ontario, most PSWS are women and about 60 per cent work in for-profit care homes, many in parttime, high-turnover jobs, according to a recent Canadian Women’s Foundation report.
Some are paid close to minimum wage, meaning they earn barely enough even with full-time hours to skirt the poverty level for a single person with no dependents. A recent survey found 67 per cent of PSWS reported earning less take-home pay now than before the pandemic. Even full-time care workers making the average wage in Ontario would fall short of the poverty level for a family of four in Toronto.
“I suspect that people who were one to two paycheques away from experiencing homelessness... now don’t have that insulation’’, said Naheed Dosani, a doctor and health justice activist in Toronto.
THE PANDEMIC HAS WORSENED THE SITUATION FOR MANY, PUSHING SOME INTO HOMELESSNESS