Calgarians are turning to each other as the cost of living rises

Moving is a daunting task at the best of times, but for Calgary resident Annika Jesper, the task was nearly impossible. He relies on public assistance as an AISH recipient and suffers from a chronic illness.

However, he is a member of an online community that helped him get through a tough day four years ago.

“This group saved me – saved me,” Jesper said.

CBC News has agreed to use an online pseudonym to protect its privacy.

Jesper said one of the group's administrators and her husband came to her rescue that day, saying they “cleaned my forehead and helped me move out.”

He is a member of the Calgarians Helping Calgarians Facebook group. There are more than 5200.

As people scroll through the page, they can see all kinds of requests for things like food, recycling, and other needs, and responses from people who come to help. It is not affiliated with any government program or business.

Jesper's story is an example of how a social mechanism known as mutual aid is prevalent in Calgary.

People turn to each other to seek help due to difficulties related to disability or social barriers, and to cut off government social supports. Mutual aid is a way for society to come together and help those in need. People can give and take according to need.

Jesper also returned it.

“I remember one time this girl asked for money for food, and I offered to pay for pizza instead,” he recalled.

But Jesper says that as someone with a disability on a fixed income, the cost of living has gone up, making it difficult to offer help.

“Price gouging, it has to be stopped or a lot of people will die, I mean that literally,” he said.

“I know the next rent will go up about 20 percent. I don't know where to come up with this. Many of us face homelessness.

“We can't be homeless because we're not mobile or because some people can't communicate properly. It's very scary.''

During a pandemic, group users jump

The Facebook group is run by sisters Kathy Fife and Sharon Moore. Moore got involved with the person who created the page 10 years ago. Then he took it upon himself and invited his sister to join him.

“We both really care about the community and we care about people. So I'm excited to get to work with him and we work really well together. It was a happy accident,” Fyfe said.

Both women are retired and give a few hours a week to run the group. They process new applications to join, monitor posts for inappropriate content, and handle other issues raised by members. According to them, the number of group members increased in 2020.

“It was tiring. “We were getting 30 and 40 member applications a day,” Moore said. “It's definitely been resolved, but we're still getting a lot of regular requests.”

To avoid taking advantage of people, the group does not allow people to solicit donations, post GoFundMe pages, or anything about the business.

Women have seen an increase in requests for help in recent years. In one case, they delivered food to a working man who was living in a truck and needed help.

What do the numbers say about mutual aid?

As the cost of living rises, the demand for non-profit services is increasing and they are struggling to keep up.

In an Ipsos poll of Canadians last May, 27 per cent of Albertans said they would access charity services for basic needs in the next six months.

More and more people are turning to crowdsourcing for help. GoFundMe, an online platform that allows people to raise money, says it has seen a 274 percent increase in “cost of living” campaigns in Canada since 2020. That was a jump from 77 campaigns to 288.

“More and more groups are mobilizing to support each other,” said Katrina Milani, a professor of public health sciences at the University of Calgary.

Milani said mutual aid is nothing new, but has become more common over the past couple of years due to the rising cost of living.

“The demand for services is increasing. Mental health issues are through the roof, substance use is through the roof and funding for our social services sector is not keeping up with the demand for services.”

In times of need, he said, ordinary people are reaching out for help, and mutual aid can be a faster solution without hindrance. He says it gives those who have access to it a sense of autonomy.

“There's a sense of empowerment when people can mobilize and find their own solutions when they're having trouble finding solutions in other ways,” Milani said.

“There's some flexibility and adaptability when you set rules and parameters about what the pillars can be.”

United African Diaspora is a mutual aid group serving the Black and African community in Calgary. It was launched in the summer of 2020 to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our team's initiative was a response to seeing how our communities were affected by COVID,” said organizer Prudence Itika.

He says some newcomers don't have access to the support they need when they arrive, and a lot of the group's work is focused on addressing that.

“We serve a lot of newly arrived refugees,” he said. “Until they're accepted, they can't join any of these different organizations that exist. We have a lot of new moms… who need a lot of newborn essentials.”

According to Ithika, she has been volunteering in non-profit organizations for several years. His group aims to serve people with dignity, which he believes may be lacking in other social supports.

“What bothered me the most were the obstacles I saw. Even feeding someone felt like a process,” she said. “Someone is hungry, let's feed them, it was as if someone was hungry, let's sit down and analyze.”

Ithika said she would like to see mutual aid become more widespread, but she wants more people to participate, especially those who have access to it. According to him, mutual aid is not charity, where people are on the same side, whether they give or receive – everyone should participate in its work.

“It's all about taking that person by the hand and working with you,” he said. “Take them by the hand and get them to work. We are missing the “mutual” part in mutual aid. Now it is becoming just “help”.

In Milani's research, he works with community organizations and individuals with experience in Calgary and Alberta. The aim is to identify what barriers are being created for people to access social support and where government policies are failing to address these issues.

There are potential risks to mutual aid.

Calgary police say they haven't seen reports of specific scams from social media groups, but they are aware of people taking advantage of charitable efforts and are warning people to use critical thinking when engaging.

Milani says the risk varies depending on the forum. Money-based websites like GoFundMe can be high-risk, he said.

“It's a little bit different than a group of lay people coming together to support each other or a group of seasoned experts,” he said.

“Obviously the risk is much greater, and we've certainly heard some stories of people creating bogus issues.”

According to Itika, mutual aid can be a permanent solution to social deprivation.

“I think people need to open themselves up to doing things in a different way,” he said. “A group of people can make a big difference in society.”