Food bank usage in Toronto is higher than its ever been, says new report

An image of the Daily Bread Food Bank on Nov. 12.

There were nearly one million more visits to Toronto food banks this year compared to last, continuing a trend of rising demand that has been seen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daily Bread and North York Harvest food banks released their annual ‘Who’s Hungry’ report on Tuesday.

The report found that there were 3.5 million client visits to member food banks from April 2023 to March 2024, which is the highest in the 41-year history of Daily Bread Food Bank.

Food bank visits as measured by the report were up by nearly one million from the previous year and have now risen by 273 per cent since before the pandemic.

“It is unfathomable that the number of client visits to food banks is now higher than the City of Toronto’s entire population,” Neil Hetherington, CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank, said in a news release accompanying the data.

The report suggests that more than one in 10 people in the city are now relying on food banks to eat following a 36 per cent rise in unique clients over the last year.

That is equal to about 155,000 new food bank clients since April 2023, which is more than four times pre-pandemic levels.

“These are our neighbours, classmates, colleagues, friends and family who thought that’ll never happen to me, and it’s happening to them,” Hetherington said during a Tuesday morning news conference at Daily Bread’s Etobicoke headquarters.

Hetherington said that during the pandemic, Daily Bread predicted that food bank demand would increase as the cost of food and rent spiked and wages and social assistance failed to keep up. Funds were set aside to meet that anticipated increase in need, however he said that the money is now almost gone. In 2020, the Daily Bread spent $1.5 million on food. This year, that number reached $29 million.

He added that the answer isn’t to agonize over the findings of the report and the dire situation they represent, but instead to “organize for our neighbours.”

“Let’s not despair in the numbers. Let’s use them as inspiration to fuel the policy change,” he said.

”Our governments cannot continue to stand by as our neighbours are pushed further and further into poverty due to astronomical housing costs and food prices, years of inflation, stagnating wages and insufficient income supports. Let’s make government step up to the plate and introduce laws that will decrease precarious employment and provide stable, decent incomes to the Canadians that require it. These are not just numbers. These are real people in our community. …. We want to make sure that everyone has a right to food and the right to housing.”

Ther report also found that food bank clients in Toronto have a median monthly income of $1,265, which is well below the poverty line of $2,397 in monthly income for a single person.

Sarah Watson, the director of community engagement at North York Harvest Food Bank, said that while the spirit of food banks is “neighbors helping neighbors and community care,” the unprecedented level of usage that is being seen in Toronto is a “clear sign of systems failure.”

“Our support systems and our social safety net have been allowed to fray to such a level that people are not falling through the cracks. The ground is collapsing,” she said.

“Newcomers, people with disabilities, unhoused people, folks working three jobs because of the lack of protection for workers, the people we see will always be the people we supported in our society, those who face the most barriers. People are coming to us in these numbers, these record-breaking numbers, because the system has failed them, because policy makers have failed them, because we as a society have failed them.”

Watson said food banks aren’t the solution to society’s failings.

“We have been doing this for decades, and it has never been so bad, and we are all so tired. I am so tired. But more than that, I am angry, because it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.

“It’s not about building a better food bank. People need affordable housing. People need access to decent work that pays a living wage, and people need social assistance rates that don’t leave them in legislative poverty. Until we see these things, the situation will not change. We cannot keep asking the same question and expect a different answer.”

She added that food banks are being asked to do “impossible things” to address food insecurity by the very people who have the power to fix this long-standing and growing problem.

“Are we OK with the response to this crisis that we’ve seen so far? Because I’ll tell you, it’s not enough, and really we’re beyond crisis. So we’re raising the alarm today and get used to the noise, because we’ll not stop bringing it until we see a commitment to actual change, to actual solutions,” she said.

Specifically, the report’s authors want to see the Canada Disability Benefit payment amount, eligibility criteria, and regulations strengthened to bring people with disabilities above the poverty line and ensure that everyone who needs this benefit can access it without claw backs.

They also want at least a quarter of the 1.5 million homes that are promised to be built in the Ontario by 2031 to be permanently affordable or supportive, with a minimum of 50,000 units in Toronto.

Lastly, on a municipal level, they’re calling for a consistent definition of affordability where rent is no more than 30 per cent of a renter’s income and for Toronto to urgently launch its Poverty Reduction Strategy Action Plan and update its Food Charter with concrete actions, indicators, and funding to prevent food insecurity and promote resiliency among Toronto’s community food programs.