When is it enough?
Rates of food insecurity in Canada have increased to the highest levels on record.
As the cost of living skyrockets and the threat of increasing interest rates loom, many Canadians are feeling the pinch.
High housing costs and a lack of housing options have squeezed people to the point of making some impossible decisions about their household finances. When there isn’t enough money to get through the month, where does one go for help? The food bank.
We have been told that people who are struggling financially will make many sacrifices in order to pay their rent or mortgage because the horrifying alternative is that their family loses their home. The sacrifice is their only strategy because options foralternative housing are at an all time low. Homeowners may not have enough equity in their home to be able to profit from a sale and ridiculously high house prices and a lack of rental options make finding something affordable an insurmountable challenge. With a disproportionate amount of income going to housing, the other necessities of life are sacrificed – the odd utility bill, children’s clothing, and groceries, all while any available credit is used up.
This forces people to dig bigger and bigger holes that are almost impossible to get out of.
Food Banks Canada says, “When someone visits a food bank, they are in a dire situation. Many people don’t want to ask for help and will exhaust many other avenues before turning to a food bank for support.”
According to the organization’s Hunger Count 2023 released this week, 18.4 per cent of people in Canada now live in food-insecure households.
“Furthermore, the gap between the number of people living under the official poverty line and those living in households experiencing food insecurity is in the millions—and growing each year. It isn’t just those at the lowest ends of the economic spectrum who are suffering. Many people who never thought they would need to turn to a food bank are walking through our doors for the first time,” states the report.
Food Banks Canada found that during the pandemic, when government supports were adequate for people to make ends meet, food bank visits dropped. Since the end of pandemic-era benefits, data has shown a “shocking growth in food bank use, which has now reached unthinkable levels.”
In 2023, there were an unprecedented 1.9 million visits to food banks in the month of March alone, an increase of 32 per cent compared to the previous year, and over 78 per cent compared to 2019. Food Banks Canada says past reports should have caused “blaring alarm bells for governments in our country, it appears that they were ignored.”
“To put it simply, how many more years must food bank use hit new records before we act? When is it enough?”
