According to a January 2009 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), the need for food banks in Canada has risen dramatically since the food bank system was put in place in 1981, with the opening of the country’s first food bank in Edmonton. The CCPA report, titled Bridging the gap between poverty and independence: What is the role of Canadian Food Banks? examines how the now ubiquitous system can be further utilized to combat the underlying need for peoples’ reliance upon them.
With a global economic crunch affecting Canada and the world, it might be easy to assume that the growth of food banks is the result of a weak economy. “Not so,” says the report’s author, Candace Weimer. Rather, it’s Weimer’s conclusion that an “uneven distribution of income” is the root cause of growth in demand for food bank services. She cites numerous examples, including the fact that heads of families are working more today and earning less than they were in 1981.
“Uncertain job security and government funding cutbacks for programs such as employment insurance for recipients have contributed to the growing fear of being a paycheque away from poverty,” she writes. “Canadian families who are raising children are working more (200 hours more per year as compared to a decade ago) but falling further behind in providing for their families, with a growing number now depending on the services of food banks.”
So what can food banks do?
The solution is not more food
“Food banks do not, and have not, pretended to be a solution to pervasive socioeconomic issues: poverty, income inequality, resultant hunger. But they are up front about doing their best to provide nutritious and safe food in a safe way and with dignity to those who need it. Many, if not most [food banks] assume the dual role of lobbying government and informing government as frontline workers.”
This, according to Vass Bednar, a graduate student at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy & Governance, and managing editor of the Esurio Journal of Hunger and Poverty – published by the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB).
She told CharityVillage in a recent interview that the nation’s “food bank system is and was a largely unplanned one, emerging fairly spontaneously through community organizing based on observed needs.”
And oh how those observed needs seem to have grown.
More tummies rumbling than ever
In its yearly census on the matter, Food Banks Canada’s (FBC) – formerly the Canadian Association of Food Banks – 2008 Hunger Count, its most recent, determined that in March 2008 alone, 704,414 Canadians turned to food banks for a nourishment assist; and 37% of them were children. Since 1997, the number of food bank users has not gone under 700,000 a month, according to FBC stats.
“Many will be surprised to learn that food bank use among working Canadians is growing. A higher percentage of food bank clients than ever before reported employment as their primary source of income. From a low of 11.9% in 2002, it has increased to 14.5% of those assisted this year. More people assisted by food banks are working – the problem is, many jobs just don’t pay enough to heat their homes, cover the rent, clothe their families, and provide three square meals every day. So, they make choices, and sometimes they reach out for help, including to food banks.” — Hunger Count 2008
Hunger Count 2009 is due out this fall.
According to the CCPA report, the number of people who relied on food banks in 1989 was nearly half the current tally, at just 378,000. This prompts the question: is a system that’s supposed to be a mere safety net actually creating a dependence on it by its patrons?
Food Banks Canada’s executive director, Katharine Schmidt, insists this isn’t the case, and refers back to the same conclusions as reported by the CCPA, saying she believes “hunger is a solvable problem” and that increasing the income of Canadians living in poverty will allow low income Canadians to “put food on the table for themselves and their families.”
“Food is a basic need. Local food banks across the country provide much needed safe quality donated food to individuals and families. Unfortunately, food banks are not able to provide the total dietary needs of those they assist; the average food bank in Canada provides between three to five days worth of food per household per month,” Schmidt says.
Asked how FBC envisions eliminating the increased need for food banks in Canada, Schmidt said that while her organization backs a call for the feds to “create a federal strategy to reduce hunger” it has a list of suggestions for the government to help solve the problem in the short term. Namely:
- Increasing the value of the Canada Child Tax Benefit to $5,000 per child, per year.
- Ensuring that federal funds allocated to the construction, maintenance and repair of social/affordable housing are being used fully and effectively.
- Increasing federal funding allocated to housing repair and improvement in rural areas.
- Providing increased and ongoing support to a system of early learning and child care that is affordable, inclusive and of high quality.
Caught between a salt rock and a hard candy place
John Campey, executive director or the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto, says that in Canada’s biggest city, he’s hard pressed to say the food banks system isn’t working. “The system helps keep us from having people starving in the street, and in that way helps to ‘hide’ the reality of hunger and inequality in our city,” he says. “No one would argue that it is a permanent solution, but until governments step up and meet their responsibilities to the poor and vulnerable, the work of food banks is a necessity.”
Campey also concurs with the CCPA’s conclusion that uneven income distribution among impoverished Canadians is at the heart of the need for food banks.
“Food banks were a direct response to the fact that the income of people at the low end of the income spectrum – both those on social assistance and the working poor – dropped below what was required to pay for food, shelter, and other basic needs. Minimum wage rates and social assistance levels dropped below subsistence levels, and food banks were one of the responses,” he notes. “Returning minimum wage levels and restoring social assistance levels to at least the [inflation-adjusted] levels of the 1980s and early 1990s would move us substantially in that direction.”
In his province, Campey suggests the Ontario government take “immediate” steps to “enact the $100-a-month healthy food supplement for all on social assistance being requested by a broad coalition of anti-poverty groups,” and adds that a study conducted by the Social Planning Council in 2003 indicated many food bank clients were “individuals who ‘should’ qualify for disability benefits, but were denied or discouraged from accessing this income support.”
Beyond this, Campey and others are mulling calls by those in the sector to try and position food banks as more than just places to get a wholesome meal. What many would now like to see is the food banks expand their mandates beyond just providing healthful nourishment and into the realm of a sort of middle-man to the provision of job skills and other requirements for those in need of a hand up.
“The strongest need is for better coordination and communication between and among community service agencies,” Campey says. “Many settlement and skills development/job training organizations identify access to food as an issue for their clients; collaboration between organizations in the two sectors, so that they can take advantage of each other’s skills and expertise, should be encouraged both by the agencies themselves, and by the government funding practices that drive agency service provision.”
Handing out food… and doling out advice
The FBC told CharityVillage it sees its role in the national tapestry as one that works “with government and other agencies to recommend policies and initiatives that can address the issue of hunger and poverty… Many food banks do more than provide food, they offer referral and counselling services, housing assistance, work with clients to access employment and training services, and many clients end up becoming much needed volunteers at the food bank, thereby assisting other in need.”
And it is in the provision of these adjunct services, and in its advocacy strategy toward governments on all levels, that the organization and its hundreds of local member affiliates across the country, place their hopes in a bid to end hunger in Canada.
How the government can help eliminate hunger
- Increase the Canada Child Tax Benefit to $5,000 per child, per year.
- Ensure that federal funds allocated to the construction, maintenance and repair of social/affordable housing are being used fully and effectively.
- Increase federal funding allocated to housing repair and improvement in rural areas.
- Provide increased and ongoing support to a system of early learning and child care that is affordable, inclusive and of high quality.
— recommendations from Food Banks Canada
Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf is president of WordLaunch professional writing services in Toronto. He can be reached at andy@wordlaunch.com.
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