Canadian food bank access rose by 20% during pandemic

A report from Food Banks Canada shows that usage of food banks across the country jumped by 20 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In total, that's 1.3 million visits to food banks just in March alone,” David Armour, interim CEO of the national organization, said. “Things are continuing to get worse: food prices are going up, housing prices are going up, there's still incredible job loss due to the pandemic and government benefits are being pulled back.”

Armour tells CityNews Halifax that the national organization compared food bank usage across the country in March 2021 and March 2019.

Its HungerCount 2021 report also shows that 33.3 per cent of food bank users are children. Moreover, 46.1 per cent of households that access food banks are single-adult households.

In Nova Scotia, 139 food banks reported that there were more than 26,000 visits throughout the year — a 1.8 per cent increase from 2019.

The report shows that the top three reasons for food banks visits are cost of food, social assistance or benefits are too low and cost of housing.

In Nova Scotia, 25 per cent of people said cost of housing was the reason for their food bank visit — it was the highest percentage in Canada.

In the short term, he said the possibility for food banks to increase capacity comes from the support of generous donors across the country who are giving funds, donations and volunteer time.

“We're getting ready for this Christmas season coming up,” he said, “but we're also making five recommendations to government to deal with this issue in the long term.”

He added that food banks are seeing a lot of people who are renters with low income, unemployed and low-wage workers as well as low-income single adults.

Food Banks Canada's recommendations include:

• New supports for renters living with low income
• Modernizing and expanding supports for low-wage and unemployed workers
• Progress toward a minimum income floor
• Income supports for low-income single adults
• Enhance measures to reduce Northern food insecurity

“We're basically saying,” he said, “'As we come out of the pandemic and we build back better and we build a better Canada we want, let's look at these areas and rebuild and update our social safety net so we don't have as many Canadians going hungry.'”

For the government to try and implement these changes, he said it must adjust the programs currently set in place, including updating low-income housing support and unemployed support.

According to Feed Nova Scotia's 2021 Report to the Community, it distributed more than 2.9 million kg of food — up 39 per cent compared to the previous year.

It also reports that 1 in 6 households in Nova Scotia are food insecure.

“What we're looking at here is providing a safety net that looks after Canadians,” he said. “I think most Canadians would agree it's not appropriate in Canada for there to be 1.3 million visits to food banks and for that to continue to go up.”