Social isolation is on the rise. Here’s how service providers are still building community.

One of the few social events of Dwayne Flohr’s week happens every Tuesday evening at an alleyway in Vancouver. 

The journeyman carpenter turned staff member for the Binners’ Project lines up six feet apart from dozens of fellow binners, workers who pick up waste and discarded bottles throughout Vancouver for cash. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, this Tuesday meeting was a jovial gathering where dozens of binners could talk, give advice, raise concerns, or just socialize together. Today, it is more of an assembly line. 

“Everyone’s wearing a mask and everyone’s hurrying in and out to get their money,” Flohr says. Nearly all binners are very low-income. They depend on the job opportunities and community that come out of these Tuesday meetings and the Binners’ Project at large. Not only have they been shortened during the pandemic, but the cancellation of public gatherings like Vancouver’s ‘car free days’ means there isn’t much waste for binners to pick up. Flohr passes some of his fellow binners on the street every now and again, but the days of socializing every Tuesday evening are over for now. “I socialize with my cat now,” he says. 

Social isolation goes beyond just a persistent sense of loneliness. The B.C. Centre for Disease Control says there is also a “strong to moderate association” with depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline. It correlates with higher rates of suicide, substance use, and crime within communities. Rates of cardiovascular disease are higher among the socially isolated. So, too, are cancer mortality rates. Addressing social isolation is crucial to health improvements, a sense of agency, and greater involvement within a community. It is no wonder that so many social impact organizations see isolation as a problem to be addressed. 

How do social impact organizations continue building community among their service users during a pandemic? It really depends. Public gathering restrictions are cutting out some of the most marginalized members of Canadian society: the homeless, impoverished, or disconnected from adequate internet access. Yet some organizations have found the imperative to go digital during COVID-19 is a boon for their membership, allowing them to access programming and services in ways that simply weren’t widely used before. It all comes down to one very simple question: How tangible is the service these organizations are providing? 

At the best of times, domestic violence is a serious problem, but public health restrictions and social isolation have led to a spike in reported cases. Taking care of the victims of domestic abuse and rehabilitating abusers themselves during a pandemic has been tricky. Wendy Keen, executive director of New Start Counselling in Halifax, says her staff had to pivot quickly. The organization provides group and individual counselling for men who have perpetrated domestic abuse, along with their families and children. She estimates about 80 percent of New Start’s users didn’t mind the switch to remote counselling, but says those with deteriorating mental health because of social isolation, or who didn’t have their own private space found it difficult. During the hardships of COVID-19, other needs sometimes took priority. “We may have lost some people because they couldn’t pay their phone bill or they couldn’t pay for their internet,” Keen says. 

80 percent of New Start’s users didn’t mind the switch to remote counselling, but says those with deteriorating mental health because of social isolation, or who didn’t have their own private space found it difficult.

Landon Hoyt, director of the Binners’ Project, says the organization’s administrative operations were quickly moved online. But the binners they serve can’t pick up waste or sort garbage at Vancouver’s residential and commercial properties from behind a computer screen. The Binners’ Project has been able to offer increased travel stipends for its various binners, Hoyt says, in lieu of lost work, but the sense of community is weaker. “Many are not getting the normal number of hours that they were getting before,” he says. “That means they’re feeling more isolated. We don’t have our Tuesday meetings like normal so there’s not the chance to have that community feel.” 

Many binners are struggling with precarious housing, substance use, or mental health issues. In the past, the Binners’ Project has done their best to ensure binners are able to participate in city council meetings and similar consultations, but that is challenging now. “We’ve made accommodations in some cases where we’ve set up a little station for the binners to come in and participate over Zoom,” he says. “Or there are other formats where we gather information and then send it as a letter. But that particular program of ours has suffered a little bit.” 

The loss of in-person meetings has also been a blow for cancer survivor groups across the country. They aren’t completely gone — Wellspring, a support group organization, is hosting both phone and online sessions — but the lack of in-person contact for survivors and their caregivers isn’t easy. Laura Burnett, vice-president of national support programs for the Canadian Cancer Society, says her organization’s CancerConnection.ca, a forum for cancer survivors all over the globe, has been critical. “It’s been a really important coping strategy for people during COVID because people have been able to access it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” she says. 

CancerConnection.ca started a decade ago. Burnett didn’t know whether the forum had seen an uptick in numbers since the pandemic began, but says cancer support has become especially important now. Cancer survivors were talking to their doctors virtually for the first time in their lives. With surgeries suspended or postponed, treatment plans changed, and some hospitals reported more patients with advanced cancers. “People were reaching out and trying to cope with that level of anxiety,” she says. One way the forum tried to ensure survivors didn’t feel alone was through a very simple rule, Burnett says: No post goes unanswered. 

One way the forum tried to ensure survivors didn’t feel alone was through a very simple rule, Burnett says: No post goes unanswered. 

For anyone trying to reduce or completely quit their drug use, combating isolation can be very important. There is a reason Narcotics Anonymous Toronto and other 12-step abstinence programs put so much emphasis on in-person meetings. When COVID-19 public health restrictions began, many of the church basements and community centres that traditionally held NA meetings began calling organizers and closing their doors. “It was pretty quick,” says Arne Hassel-Gren, NA’s Toronto-area public relations chair. “And then we had a conversation. ‘What is the responsible thing to do?’”

On the one hand, NA couldn’t forsake their members. Research conducted over the past few months has shown that overdoses are spiking, drug and alcohol use is rising, and feelings of isolation have grown dramatically. However, NA also couldn’t, in good conscience, risk the health and safety of the public. So, they made what seems like a natural compromise today. Within a week, Hassel-Gren says, a good chunk of the Toronto-area NA chapters had shifted online. 

Before the pandemic, online or telephone-based NA meetings weren’t regularly offered. But Stephanie Van Egmond, also with NA, says they offer a level of accessibility for newer members and those who live in farther-flung rural areas that didn’t really exist before, even if that comes at the cost of in-person community. “People are able to readily access recovery in a way that they haven’t,” she says. 

Today, there are virtual NA meetings across the globe unrestricted by geography or even time zones. Van Egmond says participants could hop on back-to-back meetings all day without ever leaving their home. And Hassel-Gren doesn’t believe the genie will go back into the bottle, even when the COVID-19 pandemic ends. “This is going to always exist now,” he says.