The head of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank warns his agency is almost at a breaking point.
“In March of 2023, the Daily Bread Food Bank saw 270,000 clients visit,” Neil Hetherington said at a Tuesday morning press conference. “That is the most ever recorded in our history.”
Hetherington said Daily Bread is seeing 12,500 new clients visit every single month, with most now completely reliant on its services to feed themselves and their families.
“They had never been to a food bank before,” he said.
Hetherington blamed record-high inflation rates, increased population, and stagnant income as some of the main contributors to the food insecurity crisis that’s making it harder for Ontario families to put food on their tables.
“Before the pandemic, we saw about 60,000 clients visit every single month,” Hetherington said. “When COVID hit us we saw some 120,000. Now with inflation, that number has more than doubled.”
Alongside Hetherington at the press conference was Devi Arasanayagam, who runs the Fort York Food Bank (FYFB). She said when it started as a small storefront operation, it served about 100 people. Now she is seeing over 3,000 visits each week.
“The current system is fragile. What we saw and experienced as a food bank is something I have never experienced in my 25 years of running the food bank,” Arasanayagam said.
“25 years ago we couldn’t even imagine that we would be here today with such long lineups in a prosperous city such as Toronto. This is not something that we should be experiencing,” she said.
The Daily Bread Food Bank is calling on the Ontario government to bring back the same levels of emergency assistance that was provided to individuals on social assistance throughout the pandemic. That would amount to an extra $100 per month for individuals and $200 per month for families to help counteract higher grocery prices.
“Enough is enough. We need the Ontario government to come together and provide these payments immediately,” Hetherington said.