Food bank usage up 35 per cent in Hamilton this year

Hamilton Food Share has reported a steep jump in food bank usage over the last year as demand across the province grew twice as much as during the 2008 recession.

According to a new report from Feed Ontario, after the economic devastation in 2008, food bank usage increased 19 per cent in 2009. Feed Ontario called it “the toughest
year on record for food banks and families in Ontario since we began serving our neighbours over a generation ago.” ‘

This record remained in place for nearly 15 years but was broken in 2023. This year food bank usage increased 38 per cent.

“This dramatic increase should serve as a significant warning to Ontarians and governments at all levels, as there is clearly something wrong when hundreds of thousands of people cannot afford to put food on their table,” Feed Ontario wrote in the report.

The organization says food bank usage indicates “severe economic precarity” as it’s usually the user’s absolute last resort. It’s among the last protections people have before becoming homeless according to a study conducted by Hamilton Food Share and McMaster University.

This study found 46 per cent of food bank users said they would lose their homes if they had to buy the food they receive at the food bank. While the overall poverty rate in Canada has improved from 2019 to 2022, Feed Ontario found the share of Canadians having difficulty affording their basic expenses from 19 per cent to 35 per cent between summer 2021 and late 2022.

In Hamilton specifically, this impact is seen in 34 per cent of “households accessing emergency food banks that were previously not connected with the emergency food system” and are now having to seek this assistance to meet their basic needs each month.

Ontario-wide the need has grown until 1 in 19 Ontarians need to access a food bank. If all 800,822 Ontarians who used a food bank in the 2022-2023 fiscal year formed one city it would replace Mississauga as the third-most-populous in the province, Feed Ontario said.

Much of this growth they found was from first-time food bank users who now represent about 40 per cent of all visits. Additionally, people are also visiting more frequently. The amount of people who visited at least monthly went up 38 per cent this year.

Across the province, there were 5.9 million visits to food banks this year, a 36 per cent rise. Hamilton Food Share alone saw nearly 114,700 of these visits.

The visitors themselves are overwhelmingly renters at 87 per cent Ontario-wide (including private and social rentals) and only 5 per cent were homeowners. Average rent in Canada rose to $2,174 per month by November 2023, an 8.5 per cent raise from November 2022 and a 21 per cent jump from November 2021.

Hamilton ranks as the 13th most expensive rental city in Canada with an average rent of $2,035 per month.

Additionally, most of the people using food banks are living off disability supports like the Ontario Disability Support Plan (ODSP). In Hamilton, people on  While the costs for someone living in ODSP have risen, their income has not kept place.

The Ontario Governement long resisted an ODSP rate increase over the pandemic, but instituted one in 2022 and 2023. However these increases were far from enough to keep pace with inflation and rising rents since reciepients only get $1,308 a month. Many recieve less than this as the payments are deducted for hours worked and if the reciepient lives with a spouse.

“ODSP rates do not provide sufficient income for a basic standard of living and, as a result, hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the program live in poverty,” Feed Ontario wrote.

Another 25 per cent of Hamilton food bank users are on Ontario Works (OW) financial assistance. While ODSP has gotten small increases in recent years, OW rates have been frozen since the Ontario Government took power in 2018. Those on OW recieve only $733 a month.

Those on ODSP and OW live on incomes well below the poverty line of $27,343 per year. Those on ODSP recieve $15,672 a year while those on OW get only $8,796 annually. This is 57 per cent and 32 per cent of the income needed to reach the poverty line. The living wage to thrive in Hamilton is now $19 per hour or $34,000 a year.