Mother of 2 living in downtown Toronto on rising inflation: ‘I’m struggling a lot’ | Globalnews.ca

over the next six weeks, as part of Out of pocket seriesGlobal News will examine how inflation is affecting Canadians from coast to coast.

a toronto The mother says she dropped everything when she decided to move back from China to Canada with her two children.

The family was living abroad where her now ex-husband was working.

Helena said she and the children packed their bags to “start over” in Canada in 2016, leaving her husband, whom she alleged was abusive.

Now she and the kids — a 13-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy — live in a small, one-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto.

Making a living as a single mom is hard enough, but over the past few years, the COVID-19 pandemic and high inflation have made things even more difficult for Helena.

Global News has agreed not to include his last name due to security and privacy concerns.

According to Helena, she does not receive any financial support from her ex-husband to help raise their children.

What’s more, with her family living in Japan, Helena and the two children have no additional support in Canada.

“I prefer to move on with my life alone,” she said. “I am happy, I have peace, but financially I am struggling a lot because everything is on my shoulders.”

before COVID-19 pandemic, Helena was working part-time at a fast-food restaurant while her children were in school.

But, like many others, he lost his job as the virus spread through society.

Now that things have opened up again and her kids are a little older and more independent, Helena is working more. Most of her waking hours, Monday through Friday, are spent at the law firm where she works.

Still, her big paycheck is no match for the skyrocketing prices at nearly every cash register.

“I have to pay my bills – hydro, telephone. … Because my kids are getting older, I always have to have a phone for security to keep in touch,” she said.

Helena takes public transportation wherever she needs to go, as it is cheaper than owning a car and parking it in the city.

Even though she tries to cut costs wherever possible, the family lives “paycheck to paycheck” due to bills and ever-increasing expenses.

Helena earns about $2,000 a month, however, with rent costing $1,500 a month, not much left over to cover other bills or groceries.

“My biggest bill is rent — because if it was (only) me, I could share an apartment, or live in a basement or share a room, but I can’t. No one shares a room with me. (With) not wanting to rent because I have kids,” she said.

Helena wants to move to a bigger place to better accommodate her kids as they grow into teens, but said rent prices in Toronto are “too expensive”.

Helena said that the older her children get, the more the expenses increase.

According to Helena, she spends about $700 a month on groceries to feed her family.

Helena buys some snacks and other food items at the Dollar Store, but wants to give her kids more healthy options.

“Because my kids go to school … I try to make sure my kids get lunch,” she said, adding that she prefers to send them off with fruits and other healthy snacks instead of just “junk food.” Huh.

She has been accessing the food bank for a few years now to make ends meet with what she can buy.

“I always try to cook something healthy,” she said. “But, of course, fruit is expensive.”

Anila Lee Yuen, president and CEO of the Center for Newcomers, said inflation “amplifies the vulnerability” of newcomers to Canada, or those re-entering the country after years away.

Li Yuen said that single mothers are vulnerable because they have to bear all the costs of raising their children, but they have many other duties as primary caregivers, such as helping them with school work, or Being available to stay home with them if they are sick from school.

“It’s all on that one person — it’s all on the mother,” Lee Yuen said, adding that single mothers have to do all of this along with finding steady employment.

“What we’re seeing across the board, not just with newcomer populations or even racialized communities, but[is]people across the board who don’t have a living wage. … If you at least Not making $22 an hour, working full-time, you’re not going to be able to take care of yourself,” she explained.

Li Yuen said that in order to have “a semblance of a dignified life and living environment” that all human beings deserve, a real living wage is necessary.

However, Li Yuen said that even those who are employed are finding it ‘very difficult’ because of inflation.

inflation and food insecurity

The latest Canada Food Prices Report, released last month, found that the cost of food in Canada was set to increase by 10.3 per cent in 2022. The report states that a family of four spent $15,222.80 on food last year.

The report also forecasts that food prices will increase by an average of five to seven percent in 2023, adding hundreds of dollars to the average family’s annual spending.

Neil Hetherington, CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank, said many families, even those with parents working full-time, are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living continues to rise.

In 2021, Hetherington said there was to be a “double” of the number of people with full-time employment but accessing food banks year over year.

“About 15 percent of food bank clients who had full-time positions; That number is now 30 percent of the people we serve,” he said.

“When we were growing up, we thought, ‘Okay, you go to college, get a degree and find a job, you’ll be fine,'” he continued. “That’s not the reality at all, and about 50 percent of people who come to food banks have a secondary education—they’ve done everything right, and yet, they can’t make ends meet.”

A recent survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs exclusively for Global News between December 14 and 16, 2022, found that 36 per cent of Canadians said their financial situation would be “worse” or “somewhat worse” in 2023. Was.

According to Hetherington, in 2022, more than 100,000 people in Toronto will access a food bank for the first time.

What’s more, Hetherington said the food bank’s 2023 forecast shows the number of people with access to food banks in the Toronto area will grow from 200,000 in December of 2022 to 266,000 by June.

“We’re in this strange situation of low unemployment, but pretty significant inflation and rising interest rates,” he said. “You put all those factors together, and what does that mean for the average person? Well, it probably means that their take-home pay is going to go down, and their costs are going to go up, and that means that The food bank will serve more people.

Hetherington said that while food bank numbers are not the only useful metric in determining how many people are food insecure, or who are struggling to meet their needs, they can determine what is happening in society in real time. There is a “great way” to do.

“It’s giving a crisp, clear picture that we are now in a situation we’ve never been in before,” he said.

other expenses are happening

For Helena, food isn’t the only expense she’s concerned about as her children continue to grow.

She said that as her children are getting older, they are becoming more “disorderly” about the clothes and shoes they wear.

The family gets some help from friends and other people in the community.

Otherwise, Helena will try to source her children from second-hand options like Facebook Marketplace or thrift stores.

“Even for myself, I don’t buy clothes anymore,” she said. “Because it’s so expensive I have to think twice before spending it.”

Only essential items are being procured.

Helena works hard to provide for her children, but said doing so alone can sometimes be overwhelming.

“I have to do what I have to do as a mother to raise my kids,” she said. “I know many stories that some mothers leave their children in an orphanage, but I don’t want to be one of them.”