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At , 60 per cent of families seeking help have a family income of less than $30,000. Last year for every new client who was employed another was unemployed and more than a quarter of its employable clients are now unemployed.

鈥淭he number of unemployed people coming to Catholic Family 鱿鱼视频app is up. The number of people earning $10,000-or-less is up. And the number of clients unable to pay a fee is up,鈥� said Catholic Family 鱿鱼视频app of Toronto therapist Virginia Koehler. 鈥淭hat kind of goes with people just having financial problems.鈥�

鈥淚t becomes another stressor on maintaining a peaceful, harmonious family life situation,鈥� said Catholic Family 鱿鱼视频app of Peel and Dufferin therapist Sharon Ramsay.

In the first quarter of 2010 the Canadian household debt-to-income ratio increased to 147 per cent of annual income, up from 144.9 per cent, as reported by Statistics Canada, in the last quarter of 2009.

While family debt grows, family incomes have stagnated. The median after-tax income of two-parent families with children rose 0.8 per cent between 2007 and 2008, while median market income for two-parent families with children rose by just $100 over the year, from $80,600 to $80,700.

The recent unemployment numbers show a relatively healthy 7.9-per-cent unemployment rate in June, but that doesn鈥檛 mean families are surviving unemployment. On average it takes 20 weeks to find a job, very close to a high for the last decade, according to a BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research report. Manufacturing continues to lose jobs, shedding another 10,200 positions in June.  Part-time, seasonal, contract work and self-employment are all on the rise.

鈥淚t would not be uncommon for us to encounter families who have really maxed out their lines of credit, overdrafts. They鈥檙e really, really in dire straights,鈥� said  Ramsay.

In its annual survey of family finances the Vanier Institute of the Family found a 50-per-cent increase in mortgages running 90 days or more in arrears in 2009 compared to 2008. The number of people at least three months behind in credit card payments increased 40 per cent.

Home ownership is more and more a gamble, according to Roger Sauv茅 of People Patterns Consulting, author of the Vanier Institute鱿鱼视频app annual 鈥溾�� study. For 20 years the average price of a house was 3.7 times household earnings. In February this year house prices averaged five times household earnings and real estate had risen to account for 48 per cent of the net worth of Canadian households, the highest it has been in 20 years.

Sauv茅 worries that families are being hoisted on petards they bought with their Visa cards. Easy access to credit is working some dark magic on marriages, as husbands and wives fall into what he calls 鈥渇inancial infidelity.鈥�

鈥淚t鱿鱼视频app getting more and more difficult to know what your partner is doing,鈥� he said.

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e dealing with separations, a lot comes out that is hidden 鈥� or gets hidden so that no one knows about it,鈥� said Koehler.

Catholic Family 鱿鱼视频app of Toronto has been working with parishes to get couples some pre-crisis help through support groups for the unemployed. An eight-week program called Helping Our Families 鈥� Job Loss Unemployment Program covers everything from stress management and budgeting through resum茅 writing and networking.

In Brampton and Mississauga, Catholic Family 鱿鱼视频app has resorted to walk-in clinics to help couples with everything from depression to family violence. But the numbers of families in crisis is pushing the agency beyond its ability to cope, said executive director Mark Creedon.

鈥淵ou can sprint for a while, but you can鈥檛 sprint for five miles,鈥� he said.

A little counselling can go a long way for a couple drowning in debt and on the verge of breaking up. It鱿鱼视频app all about getting couples to identify what really matters to them, said Ramsay.

鈥�(Then) they can start making some decisions that are based upon what they need and want, and not so much about what their neighbour or the television or the Internet says,鈥� said Ramsay.

It鱿鱼视频app a bit rash to blame greed and materialism for the heavy debt loads, said Sauv茅. The problem is that life has become less affordable for the generation that鱿鱼视频app trying to build and maintain a family. Everything from housing to food to health care costs more, he said.

鈥淧eople under 45, especially in the last four or five years, have had to purchase (a home) maybe for the first time. They鈥檙e now trapped with big mortgages,鈥� Sauv茅 said.

But lining up real need with real income is very hard to do in our culture, said Ramsay. People are still keeping up with the Joneses, living the way society and the media tell them they should rather than how their bank balance and income dictate.

鈥淢oney has multiple meanings for people, whether it鱿鱼视频app that sense of well-being is how much money is in the bank or whether it鱿鱼视频app about what you can buy, or a combination,鈥� said Ramsay. 鈥淚t鱿鱼视频app sometimes hard to talk about those meanings in a couple relationship because you don鈥檛 know them until somebody crosses the line.鈥�