Use of Ontario Food Banks Rose 38 Percent Last Year, Reaching ‘Crisis Level,’ Report Says

Boxes wait to be filled with provisions at the Daily Bread Food Bank warehouse in Toronto on March 18, 2020. The Canadian Press/Chris Young

Food bank use has “reached a crisis level” in Ontario, rising 38 percent in the last year, a report released by Feed Ontario has found.

More than 800,000 people in the province used a food bank between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, the highest single-year increase ever reported, according to Hunger Report 2023.

Written by Feed Ontario, a collective of hunger relief organizations, the report indicates that nearly 5.9 million food bank visits were made last year, a 36 percent increase over the previous year and a 101 percent rise over pre-pandemic numbers.

First-time visitors were also at an all-time high, accounting for two out of five people who used food banks last year, a 41 percent increase from the 2021–2022 fiscal year, the report said, adding that food bank usage has increased every year for the last seven years.

The ever-increasing demand has food banks across the province struggling to keep up.

“At what point will Ontario’s food bank network collapse?” Feed Ontario CEO Carolyn Stewart said in the report. “This is a question that leaders in the food bank sector are asking as we face skyrocketing demand that far exceeds what we saw following the 2008 recession.”

Food Bank Use on the Rise

Ms. Stewart said food bank use has “exploded” despite the unemployment rate returning to pre-pandemic levels in 2022.

“This has created a number of questions, but most significantly, we are asking: why are so many Ontarians struggling to get ahead?” she said.

“It used to be that having a job meant that you would not need to access a food bank. This is no longer the case. Working Ontarians are having trouble earning enough income to afford today’s cost of living, even when working multiple jobs or trying to cut expenses.”

The number of employed food bank users has grown to one in six visitors, an 82 percent increase over 2016–2017 and a 37 percent increase over the previous year, the report said.

Ms. Stewart cited “precarious” work, the erosion of social support programs, and a shortage of affordable housing as issues that have worsened over the past 30 years. Coupled with the skyrocketing cost of living, these contributing factors are enough to leave many households struggling to make ends meet.

“More Ontarians than ever before have had to turn to food banks and hunger-relief organizations because they can no longer afford basic necessities, including enough food to eat,” she said.

Food Banks Struggling

Ontario residents are not alone in their struggles to make ends meet. Food banks in the province are increasingly scrambling to meet the growing demand with 69 percent saying they are concerned about having enough food to hand out, the report said.

Funding is also an issue, with 53 percent of Ontario food banks saying they are worried their finances are not adequate to sustain service.

Twenty-four percent of food banks may be forced to “pause or reduce services” because demand is exceeding their resources, the report said, adding that some food banks could even be forced to shut down completely.

“The food bank model is one that is fundamentally designed to respond to an emergency need, but emergencies are supposed to end,” Ms. Stewart said. “Instead, hunger is becoming an accepted ‘new normal’ in our province, and food banks are becoming a way to subsidize governments’ balanced budgets and corporations’ profit margins. This is not sustainable. While a high level of food bank use is unacceptable in and of itself, we are at the precipice of something much worse.”

Toronto Crisis

The Feed Ontario report comes just weeks after the Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest Food Bank released a joint report that revealed one in 10 Torontonians regularly relied on food banks during the 2022–2023 year.

The two Toronto-based non-profits said food insecurity in the city is reaching “crisis” levels with 2.53 million client visits to Toronto food banks between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023—a 51 percent increase compared to the previous year.

The report described it as “the highest annual increase ever reported,” adding that if usage were to continue at its current rate, that number would climb to 3 million visits by the end of December.

The report also revealed that more than 120,000 new individuals started using food bank services for the first time in the past 12 months, a 154 percent increase year-over-year.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.