The Annual Who’s Hungry report calls on all levels of government to step up to curb trend
One in 10 people in Toronto are now relying on food banks, twice as many as the year prior, a new report finds.
Food bank usage has smashed another record this year, with more than 2.5 million visits between April 2022 and March 2023 — a 51 percent increase from the year before — and there are no signs of slowing down, according to this year’s Who’s Hungry report from Daily Bread and North York Harvest food banks. Daily Bread and North York Harvest indicate in the report they are anticipating Toronto food bank visits in 2023 will surpass three million visits.
“We are in a crisis as a city,” Ryan Noble, executive director of North York Harvest Food Bank, told CBC Toronto. “We’re in real danger as a community when we have one in 10 of our residents needing to turn to food banks.” He said many food banks that North York Harvest and Daily Bread Food Bank distribute food to are a loose network of volunteers and people who are trying to do their best to respond, but a 50 percent increase isn’t a pace they can sustain.
The report lays out a roadmap for politicians at all levels of government to follow to break the troubling trend of growing food bank use, central among them, asking governments to improve social assistance programs and rates and invest in affordable housing.
Social assistance funding is not enough
Brigitte Martin knows the difference adequate government assistance funding makes firsthand. She was among the one in 10 Torontonians using a food bank reflected in the 2023 report.
Source:Montreal.ctvnews
