these days to rent for $325. Even if you could, utilities were not typically included, so there would go another $35 - $50 which had to be taken out of the amount given for food.
The only alternative was to share the living expenses by aquiring roomates, for example say 3 people share a combined rent of $900/m. That’s for a 3 bedroom that is just barely outside of the boundaries of the ‘bad side of the tracks’. The rooms are run down, plumbing problems are routine and landlords do their best to avoid the expense of any kind of upkeep on the place. Still it’s a roof over our heads and ‘beggars can’t be choosers’.
So hurrah, you have a roof over your head and a place to call home. The next task is to try and budget the residual ‘support allowance’ to last for the entire month. Shared utility costs, anywhere from $20-$40 per month. Once the shelter costs are taken care of that leaves about $170 for ‘everything else you might through the rest of the month. Let’s see, that’s about $40 per week. Not just for food, but also for everything else such as personal hygiene items, laundry costs, bus fare to get out and look for a job.
Well the $40 doesn’t stretch that far, so ultimately you need to borrow a few bucks from a
friend, if you are lucky enough to be able to do so. If not, well you just don’t eat at all for a few days and wait for the next cheque to come in. Now come the hard decisions: shall I eat OR keep my clothes clean ? Should I take the bus to the employment office, OR should I eat a little and then walk there ? Shall I hold off on paying the phone bill to eat a little, OR pay the bill and go hungry even longer ? Where can I scrounge up enough loose change to buy some toilet paper two days before cheque day ?
By the end of the month, you are exhausted, hungry and either behind on your bills or owing someone some money. You start the next month, trying to compensate for the monies owed
but by doing so you are back where you started before the week is done. I’m sure you see the pattern here.
Some say that young people living on assistance have no right to be paid for doing nothing.
They are just lazy parasites waiting for a hand-out. They just don’t want to work, they would rather just sit on their ass and party all the time. I would say that if you think living on assistance is a picnic, you are wrong. On assistance, you don’t live, you struggle to exist for just one more day. You get exhausted by the daily struggle. You loose hope which diminishes your motivation; you become angry, or depressed; you get sick from being overwhelmed; you feel guilty, ashamed and humiliated. And as the months drag by, your search for employment becomes somewhat overshadowed by the fear of whether or not you will still have shelter next month or where you might get your next meal. You get up in the morning and begin to wonder : Is it worth it ?
PART TWO: Through the Darkness
But gradually, reality began to sink in when I would wake up in the morning and there would be no food in my fridge, I would become overwhelmed with the guilt of not doing something better with my life, and anger that no one was willing to give me a chance to prove my worth. Then it hit me one day, maybe it really is because I’m not worth anything. That’s when the thoughts of suicide began to haunt me.
Walking down the street became dangerous. It was like I would black out for a moment, and all of a sudden a movie would play in my head and I would see myself walk out into the street just in time to smacked by oncoming traffic.. and then black. And I would snap out of it, hearing horns honking and I would realize that I actually had stepped out onto the street. The depression pulled me further and further down into a world that I couldn’t except and that others couldn’t understand. Somewhere in between the psychosis of my darkest moment and the residue buzz from a three day bender, I came across an ad for the Sprott Shaw Community College, with its promise of training in a field where the jobs are so plentiful. So after a 10 minute conversation I was sucked into something that I didn’t fully understand. Confused about the idea of student loans and finacial obligation, all I really knew was that the school was going to help me find a job.
[I did manage to get a job fairly quickly in a mangerial position and I thought, wow my training is going to start paying off. Before long though, office disputes and deceptions by higher ups began to wear me down, and after only a few months, I slipped back into a major depression and had to leave that job under stress leave.
I saw many of my classmates get hooked up with jobs and went on to make good money at jobs they really enjoyed. I guess there is always one person that falls through the cracks, like a shadow. Somehow, that shadow was me. A few months later I finally landed a job, and only because I had a friend on the inside. But it was a job that did me no justice. It wasn’t the good- paying job I was promised once I had my diploma. In fact it wasn’t even something that related to my training. It was flipping burgers at a McDonalds. But at least it was something. I still barely made enough to make ends meet
