Food banks in Canada are on the verge of collapse due to high demand and donations not keeping up. Experts say this is not sustainable.
The last four years have been economically tumultuous for Canadians. a global pandemic and massive inflation raised to heights grocery pricesMore and more people are finding themselves unable to afford basic amenities.
But what happens when donations to help don’t keep up with demand?
“The word I hear most often about food banks across Canada is ‘unsustainable,’” says Kirstin Beardsley, CEO of Food Banks Canada.
“When you look at the rate of growth that we’ve seen and the stress, the amount of donations that we’ve had to see coming through the door either stagnate or not keep pace, it’s not a sustainable situation.”
How the cost of living is affecting donations and demand
Beardsley says that while food banks have always worked hard to meet the need, it is becoming more challenging to do so.
“While people across the country and Canadians continue to be generous, we are starting to hear that it is not enough to meet the increasing levels of demand that our food banks are facing,” says Beardsley.
“People’s budget has increased. They don’t have room in their budget to make additional donations because they’re really struggling to make ends meet.”
Canada Helps’ 2023 report found that 57.3 per cent of charities cannot meet the current level of demand and 31.5 per cent of charities have raised less money than the previous year.
The report also showed that the number of Canadians relying on donations for basic needs increased by eight percentage points in nine months to a total of 22 per cent of all Canadians.
Unlike other social services, food banks are primarily community-funded, with most support coming from a collection of donors and community groups and local businesses.
To give people a sense of how bad it has become, Beardsley compared the effects of the 2008 recession to the pandemic. During and after the recession, he said food banks have seen an average of 30 percent increase in demand for services. Since then COVID-19 Amid the pandemic and rising inflation, Beardsley says data for 2023 shows a nearly 80 percent increase in demand for services. He said it is likely to be higher once the 2024 numbers are collected.
“We haven’t seen this rate of growth since food banks have been collecting data,” she says.
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“Food banks respond to economic challenges far longer than federal data or statistics suggest. So the economy gets better, which is great, but food banks are still dealing with that long tail of needs as people get back on their feet and are able to support themselves.
The recent spring food drive in Barrie, Ontario, is an example of the pressure on local food banks.
The executive director of the Barrie Food Bank says although they managed to meet their food collection goal, they were $100,000 short of their funding goal.
“Food donations are obviously very helpful, but financial donations are also really important because that’s what we use to buy perishable items like meat, milk, margarine, eggs. They are extremely valuable items to customers,” says Sharon Palmer.
The Barrie Food Bank launched its spring food drive on Friday. This campaign will continue till 31 March.
Handout/Barry Food Bank
While Palmer thinks the early Easter did not help collection efforts, he believes donation fatigue is a factor.
“Donations have dropped to the point where people aren’t donating, so it’s impacting the entire industry,” she says. “So we’ve gone through the pandemic, we’ve gone through this period of high inflation which is affecting this whole social sector and a lot of charities, so there’s a lot of demands in the market, and so people can only do so much “
Palmer says demand for their services has peaked in the past few months with about 7,000 people staying each month. She says that while it’s good to see that the numbers have stopped rising, “there are still a large number of people who need food assistance on a monthly basis.”
“This is a fairly high level of food and financial donations that we need to be able to meet that need. To be realistic, we have had to cut back a bit on the quantities of some items to stay within our budget.
with the cost of living Palmer says this is leading to more people needing their services, with single people becoming one of the largest groups he sees because they have to pay for all their own expenses.
“There are still new people coming in for the first time and having to use the food bank. It’s always difficult for people to make this decision, but we’re glad they do because we know that if we can give them a little help and get them through the tough times, often times they can get back on their feet. Become. , says Palmer.
“We have an old board member who said it’s not too long before you run out of money.”
Beardsley says with making kids’ lunches, buying gas to get to work, and rent to pay, it’s hard to afford it these days.
“It is impossible to do all this work when the income is not enough and the expenses are very high.”
To combat the decline in donations, Beardsley and Palmer say food banks are relying more and more on food recovery programs, where they take food from grocery stores, food suppliers and farmers that can’t be used before it spoils. Will sell.
Palmer says this allows them to deliver perishable products with short shelf lives to those in need.
Despite efforts to keep up with high demand, experts say more work needs to be done.
addressing the root cause
Asked if the federal and provincial governments should provide more support to food banks, Palmer said it would help more if they focused on how to prevent people from going in the first place.
“I would love to create policies that help encourage employment and lead to greater housing availability,” she says.
Palmer says one area that could help curb demand is providing more financial assistance to people on government assistance programs.
She says people who rely on government assistance for an injury or disability are getting far less money than they need to cover their everyday expenses, with most or all of those people going to rent.
She notes that another key demographic they see more of is people without homes.
“Until we have more housing resources available, I don’t think this segment is going to shrink at all,” says Palmer.
The CEO of Food Banks Canada agrees, encouraging those who can’t afford to donate to advocate for change.
“Talk to elected officials about the need to invest in ensuring that low-income people have higher incomes, that we are addressing the affordability crisis in Canada, and that governments take action,” says Beardsley.
“Our vision is really – and we believe in it – a Canada where no one goes hungry.”