Welcome back to another Budget Bite.
Budget Bites, Budget Bites!
Where we bite the budget.
[Reporter] It is entertaining yes.
I'm going to break them open.
I'm gonna rip them apart and hope for the best.
Give this a try.
[Reporter] But there is more to what you see here than simply how to make a good breakfast sandwich.
We try to just show you kind of how to adult.
Because adulting is hard and not all of us were taught these skills.
[Reporter] Amber Scott is a peer support worker.
She knows how hard it is to grow up in a lockdown, she hears it every day.
You do a lot of listening.
Yeah
What do people tell yo?
It really varies. Some people get really deep into their stories.
Their mental health struggles things, that are going on in their life.
Some of it is really really heavy stuff.
[Reporter] In Midland, Ontario at this youth hub,
teens and young adults 12 to 25 can ask for help with almost anything.
Virtually or in-person.
[Reporter] Can you tell me about what you see?
A lot of people lost their job due to COVID.
and losing your job that's a financial strain which makes it hard to pay rent
and it makes it hard to pay groceries and any bills that you have.
So, these are the bags over here?
Yeah, these are
[Reporter] That's where these come in.
20 bucks worth of groceries in each bag, often including things Amber teaches how to cook.
What kind of a difference does it make for a family to have one of these bags?
Makes a huge difference. It could keep them from starving for the week.
How's school going?
Doing fine.
[Reporter] Part of COVID's cruelty is how when one problem hits, another usually isn't far behind.
Food, employment, housing - they're all linked.
And they're all hard to talk about.
I struggled with my mental health - depression, anxiety.
I hid it for a long time, a long long time.
And I wasn't comfortable talking to anyone about it.
It was kind of a taboo subject in my opinion.
[Reporter] Forty per cent of youth in Ontario say their mental health has taken a hit in the last year.
Kids Help Phone took four million calls last year,
and each experience is different.
Before COVID, Keenan thought he had it mostly together for a 22-year-old.
He'd come out as transgender years earlier as a teen.
Felt comfortable accepted but when COVID hit it started to fall apart.
I used to get up and go to work at the same time every day,
come home do the same things you know.
And now that I just have no routine it's very difficult for me to keep on track with everything.
[Reporter] With his hours cut at a local Dairy Queen
and no structure Keenan started drinking more.
He was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder,
Was even homeless for a short time.
I got into some bad things that I should not have been into in the first place,
and it really took a toll on me.
And it was really difficult to get out of those things.
[Reporter] Then, five months ago he tried to take his own life.
I just felt like nothing was really going my way and everything was just going down.
Like one bad thing after another was just, it was reoccurring,
and I couldn't really take it anymore is how I felt.
Yeah it was a very difficult time for me.
I hurt a lot of the people closest to me.
[Reporter] Contact with people in crisis, like Keenan have increased by 17 per cent at this youth hub in Chatham.
Similar services elsewhere, canceled or online-only during the lockdown.
But here Keenan was still able to get in-person counselling.
How are you doing with the drinking?
I really have slowed down a lot.
I feel like you have for sure.
There is a point where I'd like wake up the next day and like it was still a blur from like
The night before? Yeah.
[Reporter] And it was more than just talk.
They helped him find an apartment, get his medications
and most importantly they listen.
You know things still are rough.
You know everyone has their days but I'm getting there, I'm slowly getting there.
[Reporter] Then there's Halliburton, a pretty idyllic place to grow up but it is remote
and 18-year-old Finn Tentry says he started to feel trapped.
At this point I'm probably a different person than I was last year.
My stutter came back a fair bit.
[Reporter] Finn was used to being active, social.
Now, he hasn't seen some friends in over a year.
If I was in a group of people again could I socialize without just feeling awkward and out of place.
Emotion feels alien at this point.
[Reporter] And that disconnect is real on a few levels.
Out here, the internet so important for staying in touch, is not only expensive it is unreliable.
Live streaming classes for high school was next to impossible.
I couldn't really get into live streams for the most part so a lot of it was just reading
documents and skimming my textbook, trying to just teach myself chemistry.
It didn't work.
[Reporter] Finn had even been accepted to Carlton University in Ottawa but turned it down
Sure that online classes just wouldn't work.
And there was no guarantee he'd ever get back in.
I know it's silly to say it but it doesn't seem fair.
it's an easy word to throw around but...
That being said a lot of us do want to get out of here.
Okay we're gonna put stuff in the trunk.
[Reporter] But needing help and offering it can sometimes be one and the same.
Finn started getting involved with Marg Cox and others at this local youth hub
giving out tablets and phones with 50 gigs of data so they can stream their classes, but also stay connected.
The county even pitched in 25 thousand dollars to the project.
[Marg] It's that lots of people that never experienced mental health issues are now experiencing during COVID.
Youth more than ever need to be around other youth.
They need to be starting to get ready to be more independent.
It's one of those developmental stages that's normal.
[Reporter] Today Finn considers himself lucky.
He's been accepted into Carleton University for next year.
Question is how much of COVID's legacy will linger even then.
Do you have any doubts that life will get back to normal as we knew it?
I think so. I think humans are really resilient.
[Reporter] As Amber makes her final delivery for the day,
a food bag for hunter who has been living in this hotel for six months.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
[Reporter] She knows there's no escaping from hardship but there are plenty of ways to work through it.
It might take a long time and it might take a lot of work and a lot of healing
but i do believe that we will get back to a place of normalcy.