Food insecurity persists in Ontario cities that declared emergencies over past year

A volunteer works in the storeroom of St. Philip Neri’s Table Food Bank at St Philip Neri Church in Toronto, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — More than a year since a growing list of Ontario municipalities began declaring food insecurity emergencies, hunger in those communities has not abated, food bank operators say.

Although the formal declarations raised awareness and helped boost donations, the number of people relying on food banks continues to grow across Ontario and the country, reports show. Advocates say that won’t change unless better income and housing supports are provided for those who struggle to put food on the table amid an affordability crisis.

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“We’re trying to ring the bells at the highest level they can ring,” said Meghan Nicholls, the CEO of Food Banks Mississauga.

“We are drowning. This is way more than what food banks were set up to do.”

Nicholls was the person who urged Mississauga city council to declare the emergency in November 2024, after seeing the number of food insecure people in the city climb exponentially since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as the cost of living skyrocketed.

A month later, Toronto followed suit by declaring its own food insecurity emergency and Kingston city council did the same in January. Similar declarations have been made by councils in Hawkesbury, Cochrane, Orillia, Smiths Falls, Brantford and Brockville.

Mississauga, Toronto and Kingston councils called on the provincial and federal governments for help in boosting income supports — largely by improving existing disability, child and seniors’ benefits — and providing more affordable housing. Toronto’s motion also asked for more job opportunities and increased wages.

“The declaration was meant to alert people in Toronto to the severity of the crisis and to emphasize that everyone, including other levels of government, must do their part,” a spokesperson for Mayor Olivia Chow said.

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One in 10 Torontonians use food banks and about 40 per cent of them are children, Braman Thillainathan wrote in a statement.

“It’s a horrific number,” Neil Hetherington, the CEO of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank, said in a recent interview. “It took 38 years for us to serve one million clients, then two years to get to two million, one year to get to three million and one year to get to four million.”

Feed Ontario’s most recent Hunger Report found that more than one million people used a food bank in Ontario between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025 – an 87-per-cent increase since 2019-2020 – for a total of 8.7 million visits. One in four food bank visitors had a job, the report noted.

Hetherington said he initially worried that Toronto’s food insecurity emergency declaration would be merely performative.

“(Toronto) was declaring something that we knew and we had known for years,” he said.

But one year later, Hetherington said the move did make an impact. He commended the city for implementing a more fulsome school nutrition program, which Chow’s spokesperson said is on track to give 300,000 children a morning meal in school by 2026.

Hetherington said the emergency declaration also drew more attention to the issue. “We’re recognizing one in 10 people relying on food charity is abhorrent and we need to do something about it,” he said.

In Kingston, the Partners in Mission Food Bank received an extra $35,000 to $40,000 in donations within the first month of the emergency being declared, its executive director Dan Irwin said.

Many online donations included comments expressing “shock and disbelief” over the level of food insecurity in the city, Irwin said. It was also a shock for him.

“Having that declaration in a city I’m pretty proud to be a part of, it was a bit of a shock, even though I know the numbers,” he said.

Food bank operators say affordability and higher incomes are key to preventing food insecurity. Irwin said 17 per cent of his food bank patrons are employed, while Hetherington noted that working professionals with a post-secondary education have accounted for one of the largest growing groups of people in Toronto who visit the food bank.

“That is obviously disheartening because that’s the group that most people would think, ‘Wait, they’re fine, they’re young, they’re working, they’re educated, they don’t need the food bank,’” Hetherington said.

Other things also need to change, including stagnating social benefits, food bank operators say.

Irwin said 40 per cent of people coming to his food bank rely on Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program, which he said have not kept up with inflation. An increase in those benefits would give people the dignity of going to the grocery store and choosing what to buy, he said.

Single Ontarians on ODSP can currently receive up to $1,408 per month for basic needs and shelter, while a single person can receive up to $733 through Ontario Works. Average asking rent for apartments in Ontario is about $2,270, according to Rentals.ca.

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A spokesperson for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services said the government has taken “historic action to make life more affordable for Ontario families,” including increasing ODSP rates by 20 per cent since 2022.

“(We) also increased the earnings exemption by 400 per cent for people on ODSP while fully exempting the federal government’s Canada Disability Benefit from being counted as income for social assistance,” Chris Clarke wrote. “This has allowed ODSP, Ontario Works and Assistance for Children with Severe Disabilities recipients to receive up to an additional $200 a month without it affecting the financial benefits of their social assistance.”

Clarke also pointed to increases to Ontario’s minimum wage, which currently sits at $17.60 an hour. The 2025 Ontario Living Wage report said a living wage for those in the Greater Toronto Area would be $27.20 per hour, and $22.20 per hour in the area that includes Kingston.

Dozens of food banks across Ontario have also signed an open letter against the recently passed Bill 60, controversial housing legislation that critics have said will make it easier for landlords to evict tenants and could push some people deeper into poverty.

“Our programs are at their limit, teetering at the very edge of what they can manage. We simply cannot afford more legislation that makes life harder for the people we serve because we cannot meet the need as it is,” the letter said.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing did not respond to requests for comment.

Food bank operators and municipal officials say some of the steps taken by the federal government – such as rolling out an automatic tax-filing system for low-income Canadians and making the national school food program permanent – are promising, if at times a bit slow.

The federal government says the national school food program aims to provide meals for up to 400,000 children per year, with research suggesting that such programs can save families with two children in school around $800 per year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2025.

Cassidy McMackon, The Canadian Press