Caitlin Burritt  00:00 

Thank you for listening to the Unsilencing Stories Podcast. We are in the midst of a public health crisis. More than 32,000 people in Canada have died from fatal opioid overdoses since 2016 according to Health Canada. Previously, this podcast featured interviews with bereaved people in smaller towns and communities in BC and Alberta who have lost loved ones to fatal overdose. In this phase, we're sharing interviews with seven harm reduction workers, also known as peers, in different parts of BC.    

Caitlin Burritt  00:27 

The BC Centre for Disease Control Harm Reduction Services defines harm reduction as support services and strategies that aim to keep people safe and minimise death, disease and injury from high risk behaviour. Peers face a lot of challenges. This has been documented by many researchers including Zahra Mamdani and colleagues in BC. In their 2021 paper they outline significant challenges peers face including financial struggles, difficulty finding housing and stressors at work. We wanted to explore these themes with peers and find out more about their experiences and share this information with the public. So we conducted multiple remote interviews with harm reduction workers and invited them to talk about the stressors they face. 

Caitlin Burritt  01:06 

Please note this podcast contains information about substance use, overdose death, grief, trauma and stressors that peers face and this may be distressing to listen to. The podcast is part of a research project led by Aaron Goodman, PhD, faculty member at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC, and conducted under the auspices of a grant known as the Chancellor's Chair Award. I'm Caitlin Burritt, a researcher with the project. A number of researchers including Giorgia Ricciardi and Chloe Burritt, who happens to be my sister, and a number of students have played key roles in the study and you'll hear many of their voices in this podcast. 

Caitlin Burritt  01:40 

In this episode, you'll hear Lucas Akai and Esther Cheung discuss a main stressor with Lily: financial insecurity. Lily discusses how financial compensation for peer workers is often not enough compensation for the extensive shiftwork, stressful working conditions, and burnout that peers face daily. Lily discusses the difficult cycle peer workers can find themselves in as they experience burnout, struggles with financial security, and access to substances. Lily questions if peer work is a sustainable career. 

Esther Cheung  02:08 

I'll let Lucas kick it off then.  

Lucas Akai  02:11 

Sure, for sure.  

Lily  02:13 

Yeah, feel free to lead. 

Lucas Akai  02:15 

So, of course, last week, you know, we discussed the burnout aspects of work. So this week, we were thinking to go straight into the financial security or insecurity 

Lily  02:26 

okay 

Lucas Akai  02:26 

that comes with this line of work. So maybe starting with that first question is, yeah, do you receive enough financial compensation for your work?  

Lily  02:34 

Um, it's kind of like, it's just deceiving, I would say. It's, the amount of deductions is just like, "ah!," like, it feels like when you hear your hourly wage, you're like, "oh, yeah," like, you know, I make $28.50. now, as a team lead, the regular staff make $26.50. But like, when you really like put in the hours and then subtract your unpaid lunch breaks, and you subtract like, it's at least a third, a third of my check, I would say is actually gone to taxes, pension, union dues, ei like, my God, you just look at it. It's like you can, you could think you make $1500-1,600 and like, there goes $500 of it, right there, like.  

Lily  03:18 

I think that's really brutal to see over time too, um finances are not fun. Especially with taxes, too. It's just like, well, I work all this and I pay all this and I still owe money? Like, I don't understand. I'm working full time, I'm working really hard and yet it's still just barely enough to survive. Mind you, my housing costs have doubled since I lost my housing and regained it. I went from $750 rent to $1530 rent. So I'm working basically the same job, paying twice as much for my cost of living. It feels like even the cost of everything has gone up these days, like, it's like a bagged salad at the grocery store is $7.99. The other day I was like, 

Lucas Akai  04:01 

yes 

Lily  04:03 

 "no! this is not okay!" you know? 

Lucas Akai  04:05 

it's just lettuce!  

Lily  04:07 

I know! Like...I'm just, it's okay, I will eat the canned goods in the fridge. But like, in the cupboard. You know what I mean? It's just like 

Lucas Akai  04:19 

yeah, absolutely 

Lily  04:20 

when I started thinking about this, it's funny when [we talked about this] I started to draw this little diagram, which I guess I could verbalise. As I was like reviewing  

Lucas Akai  04:28 

yeah 

Lily  04:28 

these questions at the end of my day of, so I, I drew it as like a loop. Like a this thing leads to a this thing to, this to, this in this vicious circle. So this is what I see, like housing, I don't know it all connects. Housing, to finances, to work, to drugs, to stress to housing to finances, work, drugs, stress.  

Lucas Akai  04:46 

Absolutely.  

Lily  04:47 

So I really see a loop between all of it, unfortunately, where like, I need to work, work, work, to make the money and like, I do love my job. I'm happy to be working but I need to be well to be working which 

Lucas Akai  04:59 

absolutely 

Lily  05:00 

leads me to make the money I need to pay my rent. But if like anything gets stressful in life, or I'm not coping well, that means I'm spending money on drugs, which is not, there's not a whole lot of budget room for that in the monthly budget, which generally would increase my stress because now I'm disappointed in myself or needing to be late for work or whatever the repercussions are there, which, and then if it gets onto a bad roll, it could mean I'm missing work, which now means I've spent money on drugs and now I'm not making money by going to work, which stresses out my finances, which stresses out my housing, which I find as soon as I get into this weird stress circle, I almost cope with it more.  

Lily  05:40 

So instead of being like, "Oh, shit, like I had a weekend, I, I've gotta pull up my socks now." It's like, "oh, God, I made it worse. Now I'm short on rent. Now I need, oh screw it!" I'll just like, I just end up, keep spending. And anyway, this is personal stuff but I think it all, it all intertwines into this vicious little circle, like, I don't know, I've been pretty broke for a week and that's kept me more sober. So it's like wins in little things, right? But it is a hard thing for me, because I get paid every two weeks, but one of those entire checks has to completely go to rent. So if, if I'm managing to work Monday to Friday, full time, and I, this is what we're talking about, right?  

Lucas Akai  06:20 

Yes. No, no, we're, absolutely  

Lily  06:23 

yeah, I'm on,  I'm on point. If I work full time, and I get that paycheck, say that $1,500, well  there's all my rent. Now I have two weeks where I have next to no money until I get another paycheck. And it's like, is this is really the way it needs to be, so? But I guess, you know, I mean, I don't have to be like. Well, there's, there isn't a lot of housing choices. Like when I had a two bedroom, I was paying half the rent, but it wasn't my fault. I, like I was saying, I lost my housing for the landlord's wanting to overtake the property for themself.  

Lily  06:59 

And at that point, I had a two bedroom that was either always split with a roommate or a partner. Now I'm single living in a one bedroom suite, so it's like, twice as expensive. But after eight months of living in a parking lot, like you know, I took whatever I could get. So 

Lucas Akai  07:15 

right, of course  

Lily  07:16 

housing absolutely has to come first like you realise how important it is over everything else. And yeah, but then you got to, you know, keep good to make all that money to do thing, the 

Lucas Akai  07:27 

and so, within that within that cycle.  

Lily  07:30 

yeah 

Lucas Akai  07:30 

the finances the housing, do you find that within that cycle that you verbalised, there's a, there's a specific area where you have more support, you find or where you can break the cycle? 

Lily  07:41 

Well, I find when I'm doing well, then I tend to continue to do well, and it's kind of vice versa, like, I think I'm on eight days sober right now. So that's a streak which leads to better financial stability, better attendance at work. Generally speaking, though, like, because I've been doing better than I was months ago, I'm still able to have that little blip on a weekend, finances are still always just barely 

Lucas Akai  08:06 

 right 

Lily  08:06 

barely cutting it by. Pay comes through Thursday overnight, but you can't spend money if you don't have money. So sometimes it is better for me, but you know, things could be worse for sure. But yeah, so if I'm on a good roll, I tend to continue to do pretty good and get into like just a lot of sleep and Netflix and smoke weed and yeah. But um, there's still that like odd itch that comes back here and there, for sure. So um, I don't know. Yeah. Just a bit of like a lonely, not the greatest week and I totally got like a brutal flu Friday night.  

Lucas Akai  08:47 

Oh, no!  

Lily  08:48 

Last week, we had clients just like spontaneously getting so sick, like, clients just like being totally fine one minute and then like puking for hours like 

Lucas Akai  08:57 

 right  

Lily  08:58 

just horrid. So after about two days of caring for those people, I came home on my Friday, I work Monday to Friday, right? Made a nice dinner. I was like having a chill night, and then all of a sudden, like 8pm I was so sick, and I continued to be for almost 24 hours. Like, you know, like, couldn't sleep through the night 'cause I'm getting up to be sick, and it was really not fun.  

Lucas Akai  09:21 

can imagine not 

Lily  09:23 

and then it kind of, it got a bit better Sunday, but I was pretty much just in bed all day still. Like, I think I've still only eating like a bowl of soup and a piece of toast since Friday night like, no appetite. Like, I'm kind of over the flu part now. But just like yeah, so I get, I work five days and I get two days off and I literally spent my whole time being sick or in bed watching Netflix. It was hard enough just to get down three flights of stairs to take my dog out. Today has been better. I was well enough to go to work. Took my dog for a nice walk on lunch break. Oh, well. I mean, it's one day at a time here and some days you just have to kind of sink into those lulls, I think like. November has always never really been my best month. I don't know, if it's just like the seasons changing or darkness or historically, I've always had a lot of traumatic things happen in November and um.  

Lily  10:14 

It's been pretty good so far. But yeah, it was just a lonely weekend too, like, just completely by myself sick, like living alone. My poor dog's, like I literally got up when it was like, "Okay, I gotta take you out" and then even ended up having to like, throw up on the front lawn after I did the stairs at one point, just like, you know, you just wish you kind of almost had someone to call on, you know? But I felt that a lot this year, just this lone wolf, kind of thing I've had to really get tough on, you know.  

Lily  10:43 

Being single, being homeless, losing some of my best friends, like just falling apart, it's like, really realising like, you got to have your own back in this life. And thank God, my parents have been there for me through like, financial bits, I would have been screwed without them. But, and then I remember I come home to my dog, and that really helps too, it's just, he's like, we've got to, even though he's not human, we, it's still this like connection and partnership you can count on, you know, come home to a friendly face.  

Lucas Akai  11:12 

So maybe staying on the topic of financing here, just that's, you've been really doing well on that. So do you find that the money that you do earn, do you find that it's an appropriate amount for the field of work that you're [in]? So not does like, 

Lily  11:27 

yeah, like. Well, it's funny, because when I started in housing six years ago, I made $21 an hour. And then you do 

Lucas Akai  11:34 

okay 

Lily  11:34 

the deductions on that. And like, that is like a frickin show.  

Lucas Akai  11:37 

Right, yeah, absolutely.  

Lily  11:38 

That is like I was dealing with like bouncing like gang members with knives and stairwells like, holding people's intestines back in their bodies, finding dead bodies, sometimes literally having things thrown at me and screamed at and name called, like, we take horrendous abuse, we really do. And we just try to let it wash through us and still be able to hold that unconditional love. Not everybody can do that. And for $21 bucks an hour, I think that is not fair. It's like not only like a dangerous job, but yeah, I mean, I don't think I have to say much more. 

Lucas Akai  12:11 

Right, no, no. And you mentioned that was a 12 hour shift. Does that include overtime in that? Or was it all 

Lily  12:18 

no  

Lucas Akai  12:18 

$21 an hour the whole way through? 

Lily  12:21 

This was a, the shifts are still, the shifts are still 12 hours with housing companies.  

Lucas Akai  12:26 

Right.  

Lily  12:27 

But now they paid $26.50. So then that was a change in union. So I can't remember what the union was before. But maybe like three years ago or so, they actually switched unions entirely to BCGEU, I think, which is the health employers union. So we're in the same kind of classification of like, nurses and hospital workers. And I don't know what it was before. But it was  

Lucas Akai  12:52 

right 

Lily  12:53 

yeah, we just didn't have nearly the same stuff. So there's been big wage shift, we actually got back-pay, I remember too. It was like, if you had worked at, like at the housing building, like,  $26.50 for regular employees, and as a second, second tier, I'm, as a team lead, I get $28.50. So I think that number sounds nice. Like I was saying, like, it sounds like $28.50, yeah, that sounds fair. Maybe $30 would be great but like, sure, given like you don't necessarily have to have education or it's mix of experience, right? Like, it can be an entry level job, like, you know, it's not mandatory, you have things. It's just the, when you factor the deductions on it, it's like, we're not actually making like $28 an hour, you know, like, now we're right back to 

Lily  13:39 

$20 bucks an hour, because you just, you do your taxes, and you somehow owe money on top of all the taxes you've been paying. And you're like, "What the hell?" like, I just feel like we're working forever. So coworker motivated me to just do it and submit it because I haven't been getting GST and like, maybe it'll even out a bit. So I just submitted, at least I did it, right? Where was I before that? There was something 

Lucas Akai  13:39 

right 

Lucas Akai  14:03 

So that $26 and $28. That was your current job? Or was that the updated numbers? 

Lily  14:08 

It's the same, in the same union, where we have the same pay grade, which is for like a frontline  

Lucas Akai  14:13 

okay. I see  

Lily  14:14 

like regular level casual worker it's $26.50. I make $28.50 as a supervisor, so, which I think sounds fair. But then yeah, with all the deductions it's just like holy cow. So it's hard to say if it's really enough, then like, like, do we really look at that when we look at hourly wage like, for all jobs, like, I don't know, but maybe if maybe, if my housing was still $750 like it used to be, had that not changed? I'd be fine. I would honestly be great.  

Lucas Akai  14:43 

Right. 

Lily  14:44 

My other option is to start like looking for a two bedroom now that I've got housing. It's not just like taking any place I could get. I could start putting my name out to move but it's like, but I'm a five minute walk to work like do I want to have to drive? Like that would probably just be the gas right there too and, I don't know. It just seems like the cost of everything has gone up. And when I was on stress leave and on EI, I started to go into debt like to the point where my, my visas are now maxed and shut down. I get collections calling me, like, that debt has really just like, it's not even, like gigantic, but it's enough that it has haunted me at times, like you, you don't maybe like think how much finances like effect day to day and like, I don't need to live luxuriously.  

Lily  15:31 

But even just having like that little bit in your pocket, just like, it's just relieving, I can feel the difference in me like, whether I just don't feel as low or like, I just know I'm not stuck or have options. But, yeah, just dollar to dollar these days, so. And then when I get money trying to not, like, succumb to that stress or spend it on drugs, because once I start, that's when the risk to continue will go. If I don't start at all, then I'm saving money. And I mean, there's the other thing, too, if I didn't, say I didn't spend any money on drugs in a month, maybe my income would actually be enough for me to not be struggling. But because that still becomes a crutch here and there, it becomes an issue, right? Like where I'm just barely trying to hold it together financially and get everything paid, or always be one month behind on things, you know, like. 

Lucas Akai  16:23 

financial security is a big stressor. And so, do you find that the amount of money, $28 inyour case with the team lead? Do you find that that money that you earn makes you feel dignified or respected by your employer and the people you work with? Or do you find that that money is not, like, adequate in that regard? 

Lily  16:41 

I think it is because it's the best I've ever got, is how it feels now. And like I said, like that number sounds good. But it's more just like when you work all the hours, and then you see the paycheck and it's not necessarily the hourly rate. It's like where all the money's going like, and it is mostly yeah, it's like federal tax, provincial tax, Ei, then like, we do have a pension now with this new one, which is good. So everything we put into pension, which is a mandatory amount, the employer pays that same amount in as well. So it'll pay off one day. And then there's union dues, there's other, just like, the list is like... Like you see, like your, what you work and then you see the deductions. And that's where I just think it's, so I don't know, it's not really the employers fault that much like, government, I guess, or? I don't know. So, hard say. 

Lily  17:35 

It feels like $28 should be fair, in theory if we didn't lose a third of that. So maybe they should be paying us a third more then, but I don't know, it's come up this far for now. And, yeah, it's also that like, you know, I've done, I've done six years of university, and I'm not working to like, what I feel like I could, maybe my potential, but that potential also depends on all those like factors again, right? Like, like art therapy is the kind of thing, though, you need to really put yourself out there and like, be at your best and also make happen for yourself. Like, I've considered a second master's in counselling, so that I could be a counsellor and in art therapist, because counsellors are like, if you have your registered clinical counselling, you're covered by people's insurance benefits, whereas art therapy isn't covered yet.  

Lily 18:23 

It's more of a like pay, like, you have to pay for cost or there's certain aspects of insurance it'll cover, so it's not as accessible. And just unfortunately, not as recognised. I'm not saying it isn't, because it very much is, but it needs to be more recognised. Like, when I first moved here, I tried to get a job as an art therapist at the hospital. And they're like, oh, no, no, it's okay, we have an OT doing art therapy. I'm like, it's not, it's not the same thing, actually, like, occupational therapy isn't an equivalent to art therapy, which is actually a form of counselling and psychology, like, it's just, it's not fully understood in that way. And it is becoming more recognised, and we are pushing for that more. But it's like, where I'm going with this is like, you gotta like make it for yourself, right? Like, I could have a private practice and rent an office space and be charging $80 an hour for art therapy. So what's holding me back from that? Being able to survive and get the paycheck just to pay rent, right?  

Lily 19:20 

Like, in order to, what I feel is, a) I need to be completely at my best, sober and doing really well, which I still need a bit more work on, before I could commit to that. But you got to put in the work to all that planning and setup and that, like, how do I even have the time or like, energy to do that, unless money falls out of the sky or something right? Like where I can take a month off and just have that happen. But that's like renting an office space is like, "Oh, there's another chunk of money" and, it's like you need money to make money. But I love art therapy, and I'd really love to be doing more of it. That's what I mean, like, so I'm working at this. Like my parents were always at me that like, oh, you know, I'm not kinda working to my potential and I've done all this school and here I am in a job where I didn't need any of that fo,r like, you know.  

Lily  20:09 

But right now it's just paying the bills. Yeah, I had art therapy groups going before COVID started and then COVID cancelled them all. So I was like working full time and then twice a week I had two, like, hour and a half groups where I would go and go to a place so I don't have to rent the space. I show up and I bring all the materials, set it all up and I was charging, I think $40 an hour for that, where I would submit them invoices, get paid at an hourly rate, and then I pay my taxes at the end of the year for that, so. But I just haven't got back into any of that, since it's maybe become an option again. It's definitely like a passion I'm missing out on. Yeah, just trying to make enough money to survive and then to have the, for me to have like, it's been such a hard year and to have that passion, the passion is always there. It's like, the like, you know, what do I got to do to make that happen? Like I'm a big procrastinator of like, okay, I need to write some proposals and then find places that I want to send emails to to apply for, to do this. Like, I guess this is still talking about harm reduction in a way.  

Lucas Akai  21:13 

Absolutely.  

Lily  21:14 

'Cause I also work with like, helping people and art therapy, I guess, but you know what I mean? Like, I just gotta, I gotta be the one to like, put in that drive.  

Caitlin Burritt  21:22 

That brings us to the end of this episode of the Unsilencing Stories Podcast. To listen to more interviews in the series, please go to www.unsilencingstories.com, and if you'd like to share your thoughts on the episode, message us at unsilencingstories@gmail.com. Thank you for listening.