Thank you very much.
I am here to talk to you about our seniors resource centre and experiences there.
The resource centre has been around since 2002. We are open six hours a day on weekdays, or about 1,500 hours annually. During those hours, we answer around 3,500 phone calls and assist over 3,000 walk-in clients. Some of our clients seek specific information and are quite able to follow up themselves. I've been around for over a decade, and when I came to this job, that was the norm. No longer. Today, the majority of our clients come to us in crisis—financially, as well as emotionally, psychologically, and physically. They don't know where to turn.
The Canadian census identifies that 45.1% of Prince George seniors, 65-plus, are low-income. These are our clients. We see frustration, anger, tears, and hopelessness, as well as shame, on a daily basis. These seniors, often single, are in crisis. They live month to month. Incomes are insufficient to keep up their homes.
Renters come to us owing back rent, and possibly facing eviction and homelessness. Rent leaves little to live on. Homeowners come to us when repairs, especially roofs and furnaces, are beyond their means. Routine maintenance, painting, cleaning eavestroughing, and snow removal are also beyond their means. Both renters and homeowners struggle with utilities. Each winter, we see more seniors falling behind, having utilities cut off, unable to scrape together amounts owed or deposits to have services reinstated.
Our clients want housing alternatives for physical and financial reasons, but most new housing in our area is out of their price league. They need assistance with housekeeping but cannot find affordable housekeepers. They struggle with caregiving responsibilities and cannot afford in-home help or respite.
You may not see these issues as particularly insurmountable, but when you are already stretched to your monthly income and emotional and physical limits, a broken-down furnace or a bill collection notice or one more hour of caregiving can become a last straw. Yes, we see suicidal seniors.
Our staff and volunteers are excellent listeners. Clients routinely express how they are unheard in this rushed, impersonal, and highly technological world. When we really listen, we often discover that their particular crisis is more complex than originally presented. They are isolated by depression and other mental illnesses, but they are still proud northerners. They always worked hard for their families and homes, they never accepted handouts, and they don't want charity now.
Despite these values, poverty erodes their health. Simple personal hygiene is a struggle when they cannot get in and out of a bathtub safely or cannot lift partners in and out. Laundry is a struggle when those facilities are downstairs. Diets are poor. They cannot physically manage transportation for grocery shopping or carrying groceries upstairs. Incomes necessitate inexpensive foods, and lack of teeth or dentures prevents adequate chewing. Healthy fruits and vegetables are the first items cut out.
Many have to choose which crucial prescriptions to fill and which to ignore each month. Lack of appropriate eyeglasses and hearing aids isolates them further. We also learn about literacy challenges, especially computer literacy.
We refer these clients to as many sources of assistance as possible. We explain benefits and help with applications. There are many examples of things that we can refer them to locally, provincially, and federally. They don't know about these things until they come to us, even simple things like OAS. We encourage clients to talk to utility companies, and sometimes we refer them to bankruptcy representatives.
Our efforts are seldom immediately helpful, and not very reassuring. SAFER, shelter aid for elderly renters, applications may take months to process. There are long waiting lists for subsidized housing. The Better at Home program has only two part-time housekeepers and one grocery assistance volunteer in our community.
There are wait-lists for health assessments, then additional wait-lists for those programs and services. Fair PharmaCare demands sizable deductibles before subsidizing. Our own denture program relies 100% on community donations, and those donations are shrinking.
I worry about increasing debt levels, seniors with maxed-out credit cards and payday loans with high interest rates as well as Canada Revenue Agency debts. I worry about assistance not keeping up with costs.
For example, since 2005, the maximum rent that qualifies for a SAFER subsidy in B.C. has increased 9%, while rents have increased 34%. The B.C. senior supplement has remained unchanged at $49.30 for the past 30 years.
I see more elder abuse as younger people also struggle. I worry about the technological gap between those with access to information and those without. I especially worry about the number of needy seniors whom we do not see.
I don't have solutions. I have more questions than solutions. I wish I could bring a busload of our clients here to share their own stories with you personally. Thank you for allowing me to witness on their behalf.