One step ahead: Canadian care workers struggle to reach pandemic

OTTAWA / TORONTO (Reuters) – For 15 years, Halima has supported herself and her three children by working long hours caring for elderly clients in nursing homes or their personal homes in Toronto.

But as COVID-19 infections increased last year, Halima’s hours were reduced because care workers in Ontario were limited to working in one unit and suddenly couldn’t afford the monthly rent. of C $ 1,800 ($ 1,407) on her apartment.

Halima, who asked to be identified only by her first name, managed to keep a roof over her head, cutting out food. 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 COVID-19 and stop the spread of new variants. Seniors have borne the brunt of the pandemic: 70% of Canada’s more than 20,000 COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care homes.

Workers, shelter managers, union officials and health care workers have long worked with housing insecurity in expensive Canadian cities, but the pandemic has worsened the situation for many, pushing some homeless and leaving others to collapse. lawyers.

At the heart of their struggle are low wages and fewer hours amid pandemic restrictions that prevent them from working in more nursing homes. The problem is most acute among part-time workers in for-profit care homes.

In the Ontario population, most PSWs are women and about 60% work in for-profit nursing homes, many in part-time, high-turnover jobs, according to a recent report by the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

Some are paid close to the minimum wage, which means they earn barely enough, even with full-time hours to cover the level of poverty for a single person without dependents. A recent survey showed that 67% of PSWs reported earning less pay at home now than before the pandemic.

Even full-time care workers who earn an average wage in Ontario would not reach the poverty line for a family of four in Toronto.

“I suspect people who were one or two wages away from homelessness … now don’t have that isolation anymore,” 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 workers, into homelessness is also a community health risk, as workers could carry COVID-19 from nursing homes in shelters and back.

Indeed, an outbreak at a shelter for homeless people in Ottawa last year occurred in two women who had long-term care jobs but lived in shelters.

“I just can’t make enough money to afford the terms of rent in Ottawa,” said Dr. Jeff Turnbull, medical director at Ottawa Inner City Health, a commission investigating COVID-19 in Ontario nursing homes in Ottawa. end of December.

“So they brought COVID from a long-term care unit to shelters where we had an outbreak,” Turnbull said.

There are no official statistics on PSWs living in shelters and other emergency housing, although front-line staff in Ottawa and Toronto told Reuters it was a growing problem.

At Cornerstone Housing for Women in Ottawa, shelter use increased by 47.5% compared to the pre-pandemic, said executive director Sarah Davis. The organization now serves about 200 women a day and about 5% of them are front-line workers, including PSW.

“Women are trying 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 receiving new customers this week due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

In British Columbia, the province has introduced pandemic wage increases of up to $ 7 / hour and guaranteed hours. Ontario, Alberta and others have not protected the program, 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.

“In some of these houses, 70% of the workforce is part-time. Why do I want them part-time? Because they don’t have to pay for sick time and benefits, ”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 unique to Canada. The majority of long-term care workers in OECD countries are women and a large share is part-time, according to a 2019 OECD paper. A significant number have more jobs to deal with.

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 jobs. Now he works full time and, even with the increase in salaries in BC, he barely manages to pass.

“We only live wage by wage,” Pecson said.

($ 1 = $ 1.2727)