Canadian seniors reconsider retirement amid affordability crisis, waning pandemic concerns
Global News
Canada's affordability crisis is changing retirement across the country. More seniors are choosing to delay theirs or head back to work to make ends meet.
Many Canadians are reconsidering what retirement looks like for them as the pandemic recedes and Canada’s affordability crisis continues. More seniors are choosing to delay theirs or head back to work to make ends meet, and a 90-year-old Winnipeg woman is getting creative as she faces difficult choices to stay out of the red.
For Peggy Prendergast, painting is a way to both relax and secure income.
Teaching watercolour at least three times a week never seemed like a job to her, but more and more, she’s depending on it to keep up with the cost of living.
“Now, I’m really struggling because my pension is still, I still get the same dollars,” she said.
Prendergast retired from being an elementary school principal and teaching in schools about 25 years ago, a move she’d delayed after her husband died unexpectedly 40 years ago.
She’s lived in her Windsor Park house for 65 years.
Earlier in the pandemic, she got a low-interest loan for some upgrades to make sure she could call it home for many more.
“I want to stay in my house, and I’m lucky enough to be healthy,” she said. “There isn’t affordable housing for older adults to the extent that there needs to be. Assisted living is very expensive.