Ontario food bank usage hits grim milestone

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The number of Ontarians who visited a food bank in the past year eclipsed one million for the first time, the fallout of higher living costs and vulnerability to factors such as precarious work, a network for food banks reports.

For the eighth straight year, food banks in the province saw more people than ever between the spring of 2023 and 2024, with their total reaching just more than one million and their number of visits for help an “unprecedented” 7.6 million, Feed Ontario said Tuesday as it criticized governments for failing to adequately respond.

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“When we released record-breaking data last year, we thought that was the high-water mark. But food bank use has only continued to climb as more Ontarians find themselves struggling to make ends meet,” Carolyn Stewart, the umbrella group’s chief executive, said as the organization released its latest annual findings.

The number of Ontarians who visited a food bank rose by 25 per cent in the past year alone and the total number of visits by nearly one-third, Feed Ontario’s numbers show.

That increased demand came during a period in which many Canadians were struggling to deal both with a run-up in basic costs of living including food and housing, driven in part by high inflation, and with higher interest rates brought in by Canada’s central bank to help tame inflation. Interest rates are now on their way back down.

Feed Ontario, which represents more than 1,200 food banks and hunger-relief organizations, said income isn’t keeping up with the spike in the cost of living and many Ontarians are also squeezed by the erosion of social support programs and not enough affordable housing.

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“Food banks cannot keep up with the unprecedented need they’re seeing,” said Stewart. “Across the province, we are hearing reports of long lines, empty shelves and a growing concern that some food banks may have to close their doors.”

The dire outlook could leave some smaller food banks struggling to survive if the growing demand for help persists, said Glen Pearson, co-director of the London Food Bank and a decades-long veteran of the fight against food insecurity.

Food banks, he said, have dealt with rising demand for years but some smaller ones can’t continue to absorb that pressure.  If it continues, he said, “then some food banks will not be able to survive that onslaught and it will be too much.”

The London Food Bank “might be OK,” Pearson said, but its work helping other agencies keep up with the need for more donations is a “major task.”

The London Food Bank, which helps about 18,000 people a year including 6,000 families, is weeks away from its fall food drive. Expected to run from Oct. 4 to 14, with details yet to come, the campaign collects financial and food donations for the food bank and the agencies it helps.

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Increasingly, Pearson said, the food bank is seeing people turning to it for help who once were donors themselves.

“Working people who exist on minimum wage jobs and have to choose between affording rent and food are people who never used to come to the food bank but also donated,” he said.

The food bank is also resorting to new ways to help improve food security, Pearson said, such as teaching people how to grow their own food.

“We’ve all tried to do what we can to help, but if (demand) continues to go up to this degree food banks will not be able to meet that demand,” he said. “We don’t think there’s any getting out of this.”

bbaleeiro@postmedia.com

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