Stress, isolation, feelings of failure: Rising costs are taking a toll on mental health this holiday season

Stephanie Watts and her husband are forgoing Christmas presents this year and giving themselves the gift of dining out.

The Metro Vancouver-based first responder and her partner both have full-time jobs, but Watts says the cost of living has made penny-pinching essential and a night on the town financially out of reach.

"On paper, I make what should be a comfortable middle-class living wage but it's just not cutting it anymore," said Watts, speaking on CBC's The Early Edition.

"It's exhausting, you know, the constant calculating: 'OK, how much are all these things going to cost? How can I pack as many things as I can into this one errand so that I can save some gas?

"If we are feeling that, what are people on the low-income spectrum feeling?"

Likewise, outreach worker Anita Lau says the holidays — and day-to-day life — are feeling more difficult than ever.

"It's spend less, eat less, socialize less," she said. "We try to survive."

Anita Lau works as an outreach worker in Vancouver. Even though she struggles financially, she says her job makes her aware of people even more stretched than she is. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Statistics show they are not alone.

According to a recent online Ipsos survey of 1,000 Canadians, 78 per cent of respondents say inflation and interest rates have significantly affected their holiday spending budget.

More than half of people surveyed said they are staying home to save money these days and 38 per cent of people are worried they will not be able to feed their families.

Mental health impact

Murray Baker, manager of financial empowerment at Family Services of Greater Vancouver, said he has many clients who can no longer cover the cost of a meal or activity outside their homes, and he is seeing the effect that is having first hand.

"It is having an impact on people's mental health," said Baker.

In the wake of an already isolating pandemic, being cooped up without the means to socialize causes relationship tension and individual emotional hardship, he added.

As an outreach worker with the Yarrow Intergenerational Society for Justice, Lau works with low-income Chinese-speaking seniors in Vancouver's Chinatown and Downtown Eastside, helping them navigate their basic needs.

A lot of their time, she said, is taken up by locating and lining up for free food from service providers in the area.

Lau is pictured in Vancouver's Chinatown on Monday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Because of the work she does, Lau says she feels guilty reflecting on her own situation, which currently includes taking on freelance work to make ends meet and the constant worry that funding could be cut for the small non-profit that employs her.

"I don't really have any job security," said Lau.

"It's also very difficult for me because in my day-to-day I work with low-income people, so sometimes it feels like my problem is not really a problem."

Meanwhile, Lau is working almost seven days a week and feeling isolated at home because she cannot afford to go out. Many of her friends, she says, are living the same way.

Watts says she feels like a 'failure' for not being able to afford to buy a home. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"It's very exhausting and it's hard to say we can be optimistic anymore, especially after a pandemic. We are already very tired and we are still facing this kind of situation," she said.

Watts and Lau, who both rent, say housing affordability is a top financial stressor and policymakers need to improve the situation.

Data released in December by rentals.ca showed Vancouver is Canada's most expensive city for rent, with the average one-bedroom unit listed at $2,866 compared to a national average of $1,931.

Housing help wanted

The B.C. government introduced housing-related bills in November in an attempt to increase housing supply.

After cracking down on short-term rentals, B.C. introduced legislation that takes aim at single-family zoning, reforms the way municipalities collect fees from developers, and sets minimum requirements for building heights and densities that municipalities must allow.

"The government needs to keep doing what they can to bring down inflation rates ... and stop commodifying housing," said Watts.

She said being part of a double-income household that cannot afford to enter the housing market comes with not only the worry that their rental could be sold out from under them at any time, but the feeling they will never meet certain "societal benchmarks."

"We can't get away from that feeling of being failures," said Watts.

For the online Ipsos sample, a margin of error cannot be calculated, but for comparison purposes, a random sample of the same size would yield a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.