Winter can be a difficult time for those living in poverty in Canada. The Christmas bills roll in, heating bills soar, and a broken zipper on a winter coat can bring a person to tears. With the lack of light, extra expenses and difficulty getting out, depression can deepen.

We decided to do a second round of filming in early February to try to capture some of the difficulties the film participants face during the long, often bleak winter months. Here are updates on the four mothers we filmed in June, plus a summary of the interview we did with Alison, who was unable to participate in June.

Debbie

Debbie remains in financial crisis; however, her situation is even worse than when we filmed her in June, because of debts related to her Christmas spending. Her son, Mark, who is 14, is very conscious of the family’s poverty and is trying to do his part to protect his mother and not add to the family’s financial strain. Debbie said that Mark told his 8 year-old brother not to expect too much for Christmas because there is no Santa Claus, Santa is their mother. Debbie said that this broke her heart so she spent a lot of money that she didn’t have so the kids would have a good Christmas. A number of bills didn’t get paid, so now she is scrambling. Of the honorarium that I gave her, $100 was going on the phone bill the same day, so her service wouldn’t be disconnected, and the rest would be used for other bills and food. One of the kids had been home sick for two weeks and used a lot of toilet paper, so that was one of the things on her grocery list. But even still, it will be 2.5 weeks before the Child Tax Benefit cheque comes, and Debbie’s fridge and cupboards are nearly empty. She says she is “relying on the kindness of strangers” at this point. She says she doesn’t know where the help will come from, but she has faith that it will arrive. She will let people know that it is rough right now and that she needs food. She is also looking for mattresses. One child is sleeping on a 30 yr old mattress that is falling apart. Another child is sleeping on a box spring.

Addendum: A week after we filmed, I had a haunting voice mail message from Debbie saying that she really needed my help, that she was desperate because there was no food in the house. I was leaving town for a few days, so it wouldn’t work for me to take her to the food bank (which is many miles from her house, and not very accessible by bus). Instead, I gave her some money for food, which she came to pick up at my office. With such a direct and desperate appeal, I didn’t feel that I could do anything else. I suspect she is running out of other people and resources she can call on. It is hard to see how Debbie will be able pull herself out of the financial hole she is in.

Summer
Summer is expecting her third child in April, another girl. Her other two girls are 5 and 2.5 yrs old. After we filmed her in late June, her new boyfriend moved in, and then they married in mid-August. But the marriage lasted only a few weeks and he moved out again. Now she is looking for a divorce lawyer. She considered terminating the pregnancy, but she said she couldn’t do it. Summer says that since he moved out, the ex-boyfriend has exhibited mental instability. The father of Summer’s second child continues to make her life miserable, in part by phoning Children’s Aid and making false allegations about how she is treating her children. She hopes to raise the third daughter without any involvement from the baby’s father and she says that Children’s Aid doesn’t want him to be involved, based on his actions in the past few months. He will be soon be posted by the military in Afghanistan for a year, so she doesn’t think he will have any interest in his baby daughter.
Over the summer when her boyfriend was around to look after her two girls, Summer was able to get a job as a dietary aide at a nursing home, which she really enjoyed, and it paid reasonably well. The downside was that she didn’t like being away from her girls so much. She had to give up that job once her ex moved out and she lost him as a child care provider. She is still hoping to move back to Toronto, where her family is, so that they can provide child care while she works. She would like to re-start her cleaning business, and thinks it will be much easier to do in Toronto, because of family support, especially for child care, and also much better public transportation. The major impediment to moving is her second daughter’s father, who lives in Kingston and refuses to let Summer move with his daughter. It would also be difficult for her to find affordable housing in Toronto. She is also anticipating being completely off Ontario Works this month because her second daughter’s father has been ordered by the courts to increase his child support by $300 per month. She hopes that there won’t be any repercussions from being cut off from the extended health care benefits that Ontario Works provides.

“Sophie”
Sophie is doing well. Since we filmed her in June, she is on two new medications to control her depression and anxiety, and she finds they are working really well. She continues to hold down three part-time jobs, and also relies on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
She spoke of her slow but steady climb out of a financial hole and how difficult it is to get back on top of things once you are in a hole. Partly because she is doing so much better psychologically, she is also able to plan and think ahead and budget far into the future. Though it is only early February, she is already putting money away for summer camps and programs for her daughter, and she starts planning for Christmas in June, watching for sales and putting things aside. She said that for the first time, she was able to approach Christmas differently, not get sucked into the whole consumer spending frenzy, and feel okay about it all. But she has learned this only from bitter, bitter experience. Every year, her ODSP cheque arrives before Christmas, but this means that there isn’t another cheque until the end of January. For the first time, she was able to bank that, and pretend it wasn’t there, to avoid the financial crisis that usually drags her down in January. She spoke of walking a thin line financially, and always being aware of the deep dark pit that is never far away.

Addendum: After we filmed, Sophie sent an email of profound gratitude for the honorarium that I gave her for the filming. She said that now she wouldn’t have to dip into the summer savings reserve for her daughter’s upcoming birthday present and small party

Pam
Pam continues to work at a home care agency and this job, plus all the walking she is doing to get back and forth to clients’ homes, is taking its toll on her body. Her back is really bothering her so she no longer back packs her groceries home from the grocery store. Instead, she gets a cab, which costs $9 that she can ill afford. She would like to see a chiropractor, or do yoga or pilates classes but can’t afford any of these. She said she bought a pilates VHS tape to do at home, but she can’t do the exercises because she has so much back pain. Her feet are also bothering her; she realized that she has bunions, which she attributes to the cheap shoes she is forced to wear. She walks so much that she has literally worn holes in her shoes and she has thick calluses on her feet. She says that sometimes she walks 30 minutes to get to a client’s home for a 30 minute appointment, and then has a 30 minute walk home again. The only treatment for the bunions involves taking at least 6 weeks off work, which she can’t afford.
Her son, who is now 14, has been causing her a great deal of anguish. She said she found paraphernalia related to drugs in his drawer, which made her really, really angry because she feels that she has scrimped and sacrificed and is “breaking her back” (quite literally) for him and now he is wasting her hard-earned money. He was also caught shoplifting in the summer. She worries that he is a “follower” (not like her) and that he just wants to fit in with the other (wealthier) kids in the neighbourhood. She bought him an i-Pod Touch for Christmas, which “nearly killed” her. The other thing that she is really upset about is that her son has told her that he doesn’t want to go to college because he doesn’t have to want to slave like she does to pay off her student loan debt. She is really upset about this because she knows that education is the only way out of poverty. She has started to put away some money in Canada Savings Bonds for him for college ($30/month), but then her case worker at Social Services told her that once her savings and her income reach a total of $1500/month, she will be cut off Ontario Works completely, leaving her without drug coverage and the small monthly OW cheque she receives. She has estimated that it will take her 55 years, at her current rate of payment, to pay off her student loan of $10,000 (which she took out to earn a personal support worker diploma from the local community college).

Alison
Alison was unable to participate in the June filming because she was undergoing diagnostic tests. She was found to have a non-malignant (but growing) tumour on her optic nerve. She had already lost considerable eyesight in one eye. The tumour is non-operable, but radiation has shrunken it and all the doctors can do now is monitor it.
She had to travel back and forth weekly to Toronto for five weeks over the summer for the radiation treatment. She had to pay costs for travel and accommodation, though she was able to stay at a lodge associated with Princess Margaret Hospital for $75/week, including food. But she also had to leave her 6.5 yr old daughter at home. She is very grateful to her daughter’s father, who moved into her place while she was away and cared for her daughter. Alison felt that her daughter was traumatized enough, and that it was better for her to stay at home in her own surroundings. She and her daughter’s father get along well, and Alison said she can’t say anything bad about him, but it seems that the relationship is emotionally complicated and difficult for Alison. She feels that by helping her out with child care, she has held him back from doing something more with his life. Her eyes filled with tears when she spoke about this.
The other complication was that she had to take sick leave from her community correction services job, where she had a casual position. She was eligible for sick benefits from EI, but had to apply to social assistance to cover the gap between the end of her earnings and receipt of EI. She said for the first time in her life she was treated well at the social assistance office. She speculates that this was the case because it was clear that she had been working, and she had to leave work through no fault of her own. Ontario Works (OW) covered some of the costs of her medical expenses, like travel, that were not covered.
Now, even though she is off sick leave and has reported back to work, she has not been called. She didn’t want to talk too much about this, because she thinks something fishy is going on and that she will be taking further action on it. If she doesn’t get called back soon, she will have to go on OW again until she finds another job. She has also been thinking about going back to school, but says she will have to think long and hard about going further into debt and what sort of job that would make that worthwhile.
Alison also described some of her struggles to complete her college diploma, as well as her concerns about her daughter’s health, concerns that her family doctor did not take seriously for a long time. She has been trying to sort out her daughter’s health problems at the same time she is dealing with her own.
The most moving part of Alison’s interview was her description of the stigma of being poor, for example, of not having the right clothes, not feeling like she fits in, and feeling looked down on by everyone. When I asked her what needed to change, she said immediately that people’s attitudes toward the poor need to change, and she started to cry. She gave an example of being closely monitored and followed every time she goes to the local grocery store. She has no idea why this happens; she has never shoplifted. As she said, it is stressful enough to be grocery shopping with little money without someone tailing her.