Occasional skipping meals has become the norm for Tara Andrews, who says Grocery prices rising Has made it very difficult to adequately feed himself and his two juveniles.
Even with food donations and the help of her retired parents, the 49-year-old single mom says the skyrocketing cost of living exceeds her monthly income of $1,200. She already owes a month for May’s rent and expects the same for June.
“My grocery bill has almost doubled and I get maybe half of what I get. It’s a direct connection that the more expensive things get, the less I can buy,” Andrews says from his home in Coquitlam, BC.
It’s a familiar story for the various agencies dedicated to addressing food insecurity, said the head of Food Bank Canada, adding that many families with children are particularly precarious as school-based food programs take off.
Kirsten Beardsley says that nearly a third of the people who depend on Canada’s food banks are children _ as much as 400,000 each month. The agency says that food bank use is on the rise in single-parent families.
“These are children who are not getting a chance to thrive. And it has a long-term impact on the country,” says Beardsley.
“You can’t forget the fact that kids don’t get another childhood, they can’t end it. This is their one chance and you need to make sure we’re giving everyone the opportunity they deserve.” They should build their lives.”
This summer, Food Banks Canada expects to bump up its summer meal packs to kids by 175,000_ over last year and several times more than 2015’s 700 opening packs.
In Toronto, the head of the Daily Bread Food Bank also says requests for aid have increased as inflation hits a nearly four-decade high.
Neil Hetherington says his agency is seeing approximately 160,000 client visits per month, up from about 120,000 per month in January. He says the modeling the organization has done with CIBC predicts it to grow to 200,000 client visits per month in December.
He says counterparts across the country tell him about similar spikes, with many reporting a 20 to 30 per cent increase in demand.
While many of these visitors have been marginalized over the years, Hetherington says he is also seeing new faces who have never turned to food charities, rising food prices, gas prices, housing costs and moving. Some sectors boomed at the confluence of labor uncertainty.
“We are seeing individuals who are working, but their salaries are not keeping pace with the cost of being able to go to their place of employment or be able to feed their children. They are concerned about what they are seeing and (about) being able to put food on the table,” Hetherington says.
Back in British Columbia, Andrews says things would be much worse for her without a subsidy for her three-bedroom apartment, which brings in a rent of $540 per month.
But she says the pre-existing financial crisis deepened during the pandemic and only got worse in 2022 as inflation raised the cost of gas and utilities as well.
She’s also saddled with $150,000 in school loans, but can only cover the interest.
“I am luckier than some because I live in housing so it is subsidized but still you have all the bills that go with it to run the house. Then there is food on top of that,” she says.
“I’m making enough to cover my bills and not really afford food. That’s what it really comes down to.”
Among the organizations Andrews relies on is North Vancouver-based Backpack Buddies, which supplies weekend meals to kids who need help feeding between the end of school on Friday afternoon and restarting on Monday morning. Is.
Emily-Anne King, co-executive director, says the program expanded into the summer months during the pandemic and will expand further this summer.
“We were expecting the onset of COVID in March of 2020 and six months after that would be the height of demand for services like ours, but we are seeing higher demand than we are today,” King says.
She says she has recently added 500 more recipients to communities, including lower Similkameen, Saltspring Island and the village of Litton, devastated by last year’s wildfires. They hope to help about 2,100 children a week this summer.
Demand rises as the annual inflation rate rises sharply since 1983, with Statistics Canada announcing Wednesday that the consumer price index in May was up 7.7 percent from a year earlier.
It has a lot to do with more interest rate hikes to control inflation. Bank of Canada has already raised its key target three times this year.
Statistics Canada said the price of groceries in May rose nearly 10 percent over the previous year, matching April’s jump. The price of fresh vegetables increased by 10 per cent, while the highest on record increased by 30 per cent in edible fats and oils.
As prices continue to rise, University of Toronto food policy expert Valerie Tarasuk says things will only get worse for the 5.8 million Canadians who are considered food insecure, about 1.4 million of them children.
While that pool may be bigger this year, he is most concerned about already suffering Canadians who will drown unless income support programs are coupled with rising costs.
“Things are about to get a lot worse before they get better. And I think with each one of these reports, I expect more and more pressure to rethink what our political leaders are doing at the lower end.” feeling,” Tarasuke says.
“We don’t need small lump sum cheques. They won’t be enough to make it go away. We need policies that are really sustainable and that means things like indexation. ,
The Bank of Canada has said it is ready to “act more vigorously” to tame inflation, with some economists suspecting that the US Federal Reserve’s move next month will coincide with the rate cut by three-quarters of a percent. may increase.
For Canadians who are already overextended, Hetherington says that a percentage increase or two on monthly mortgage or loan repayments could be significant.
“I see kids excited to be at the food bank on a daily basis,” says Hetherington, who does food shopping.
“They are thrilled to go shopping with their parents at a food bank and it breaks your heart. It is absolutely wrong that this is happening in our country.”
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