'Perfect storm': Ottawa Food Bank faces increased demand and rising costs

Food bank demand grew by 20 per cent in pandemic Annual Hunger Count reflects tough times in the pandemic, and families face higher cost of living ahead. CTV’s Peter Szperling reports.

OTTAWA — A new report is shedding light on the increasing demand for food banks in Canada during the pandemic.

According to a newly released study from Food Banks Canada’s Hunger Count, visits have increased 20 per cent since 2019.

The Ottawa Food Bank is one of many across Canada who are also seeing an increased demand.

"There’s a couple of things that are creating the perfect storm,” says Rachael Wilson, CEO of the Ottawa Food Bank.

"We’re seeing an increase in the last couple of months for sure; we’re seeing a 17 per cent increase in food bank usage, and we’re seeing our home deliveries actually go up by 40 per cent."

Wilson says a number of factors are contributing to more people relying on them.

"We’ve got the increased cost of housing in Ottawa, the affordable housing list tremendously long - and trying to buy a house for anyone is very expensive, the cost of food has gone up exponentially, the cost of gas, inflation, it affects everyone - and then, the loss of jobs," said Wilson. "We’re seeing all three of those things come together, meaning more and more people are needing the food bank."

The end of pandemic support like CERB may bring an even bigger need.

"We suspect with CERB now ending, we’re going to start to see more first-time users again in the next couple of months."

The rising cost of living for clients is also having an effect on the Ottawa Food Bank.

Wilson says they’ve increased "overall spending by about 15 per cent, over this time last year," which includes more food going out because of more clients, and operating costs.

"Having to house and heat the warehouse that we have, putting the gas in the trucks; we have five trucks that are out on the road, delivering 14 tonnes every single day - and we’re filling those trucks with gas that is astronomically expensive right now."

The Ottawa Food Bank uses donated dollars to purchase food and fortunately the cost to buy food in bulk with cash donations, or 'buying power', is stable.

"Thankfully our buying power has remained pretty stable," says Wilson. "When we’re buying in the numbers that we’re buying in, we’re able to continue to get the best prices possible; whenever somebody donates a dollar, we are still able to turn that into about $5 worth of healthy, nutritious food delivered to the community."

The increased demand isn’t just unique to Ottawa; food banks across Canada are seeing more clients come in,

"Because of a lot of the pandemic related unemployment, they’re seeing - many urban food banks, larger urban food banks are seeing usage double over the past few years," says Richard Matern, Research Director for Food Banks Canada. "And, considering that many of them were seeing thousands of clients in a given month before the pandemic, this doubling is quite substantial."

According to Food Banks Canada’s ‘Hunger Count,’ there were more than 1.3 million visits to food banks in March of this year alone, and the organization says one third of clients are children.

"The pandemic has just really highlighted the fact that there are so many people in Ottawa who are one emergency, one job loss away from having to turn to a food bank," says Wilson.