Mississauga food banks experiencing highest increase in demand across Canada

In August, Food Banks Mississauga shared Michelle’s story (her name was changed). The former security guard previously worked full-time and was able to provide for her three children. A sudden health issue changed things. She was forced to rely on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Canada Child Benefits, which barely covered her basic living costs. 

“My rent is $1,650. I get $1,968 every month from ODSP. I have to wait until the 20th to get child tax, and the child tax is only $850. By the time I get $850, I’ve already borrowed $200 or $300 from someone else. When I get my pay, I have to give it away. And then we do it again next month.”

Mississauga has seen the largest escalation in food bank visits in all of Canada over the last 12 months. It has provided support to more than 56,000 residents who visited more than 420,000 times over that span, with eight percent of the city’s population using the service — 58 percent more people than the year before. The organization also recorded a 42 percent increase in children using its services.

Since 2019, the reliance on food banks in Mississauga has far outpaced other parts of Ontario and the rest of the GTA. A number of forces and factors have conspired against families to create untenable financial conditions: a young demographic; a large immigrant population too often cut out from employment opportunities; a lack of well-paying jobs; high housing costs; and poor options for affordable groceries in many parts of the city. 

The Who’s Hungry Report in 2019 found the escalation in food bank usage in Mississauga, compared to the year before, was the highest in the GTA.

(Who’s Hungry Report)

The result is an explosion in the number of residents who need support while food banks struggle to meet the alarming need. 

“Food banks need to brace for a tidal wave of increased demand as almost one quarter of all Canadian residents expect to need help from a community agency this fall,” Meghan Nicholls, CEO of Food Banks Mississauga said. “This drastic increase in need, along with the deep under-investments that have caused it means we're starting to see reports from across the country of food banks closing, reducing hours, sharing photos of empty shelves, and here at Food Banks Mississauga, we are nearing that capacity as well.”

Feed Ontario reported earlier this week that more than 1 million people across the province are now relying on food banks, a 22 percent increase from the same period between 2022 and 2023. Even more troubling, these organizations were visited over 7.6 million times between April 2023 and March 2024, up 31 percent from the year before and an increase of 134 percent from numbers recorded between 2019 and 2020. 

This marks the eighth consecutive year that food banks have reported a rise in the number of people in need of assistance. 

Province-wide, a growing number of food banks are seeing lines of clients who are no longer able to get the same support due to the overwhelming demand, as supplies simply cannot keep up. 

Feed Ontario reports that the sustainability of these organizations is slipping and people’s need for emergency food assistance is outpacing the capacity of food banks across the province. As a result of this added pressure, 69 percent of food banks that fall under their network are concerned about not having enough food to adequately provide support to people in need, and 53 percent worry about having enough funding to adequately meet the demand in their community. With demand outpacing capacity and limited resources, 24 percent of food banks are concerned they will need to pause or reduce service. Feed Ontario’s 2023 Hunger Report warned that four percent of food banks feared they may need to close their doors due to a lack of resources.

In its 2024 pre-budget submission to the Province, the organization warned, “Some food banks have already been forced to reduce service or even close completely, and concern is rising about the potential for a network collapse.”

“We are terrified for what's to come,” Carolyn Stewart, CEO of Feed Ontario, said on Tuesday. “Often we are the last stand before homelessness as well, because people are choosing between housing and food, so this is a very serious issue.”

Food banks across the province fear they have reached a breaking point.

(Food Banks Mississauga) 

Precarious employment and insufficient social support programs have contributed to a rise in poverty. 

Data from food banks show one of the main drivers of demand in Ontario is the meteoric rise in the cost of living, as incomes fail to keep pace. “[T]he erosion of social support programs, a failure to adequately invest in affordable housing, and the growth of precarious work” have been identified by Feed Ontario as the key causes of food insecurity. 

Its 2023 report found 71 percent of food bank survey respondents reported their circumstances are worse or much worse than prior to the pandemic. 

“People in Ontario are drowning in the rising tide of unaffordability,” Stewart said. “The cost of living has surged and for too many people there's simply no life raft in sight. Instead of being thrown a lifeline, more and more people are being pulled under, trapped in the cycle of poverty and living in circumstances that make it impossible to get their heads above water.”

Food banks, designed as an emergency service to fill what was initially considered a short-term gap, have now become a permanent solution to a growing crisis. Five years ago, 1 in 37 residents in Mississauga relied on the food bank for support. Now, the numbers are 1 in 13. 

“Without significant funding or legislation intervention, we will not be able to meet the needs of our community,” Nicholls said. “This is a crisis that's only growing. What is it going to take for our elected officials to respond? Is 1 million Ontario residents enough?”

While the disturbing increase in food bank usage tshould be a warning for the PC government, there continues to be a drastic absence of adequate investments into social assistance programs. 

Food Banks Mississauga CEO Meghan Nicholls warns the organization is nearing capacity as more residents in the city need its services.

(Food Banks Mississauga) 

Food banks are not a government funded social service and instead rely primarily on the generosity of donations from their communities. As more people struggle, the number of residents able to donate has declined. Some who used to be donors are now coming in to access services. 

The organization has announced the launch of its annual Thanksgiving Drive, which aims to raise $800,000 by October 21. 

Recognizing there is no overnight solution to food insecurity and poverty, Feed Ontario, alongside Food Banks Mississauga, Food Banks Canada and leaders of several other food bank organizations across the province, have provided recommendations to the PC government to address the rising demand. 

This includes: a call to prioritize affordable housing along with investments in supportive housing and tenant protections; ensure people can earn enough income for today's cost of living by providing quality jobs that offer a living wage while improving labor laws and reducing barriers to unionization; and that the PCs strengthen the social safety net by increasing social assistance rates so people who rely on these programs have enough income to afford their basic necessities each month.

“People are drowning in this crisis, but they don't have to be,” Stewart said.  

Food banks across the province have been pleading to the Ontario government for support to address the root causes pushing people to their services, but there is a clear disconnect between this reality and the Doug Ford government’s priorities.

“[The Province has] begun to rely on food banks as a social support mechanism, as opposed to an emergency measure. We are not part of the social safety net. We are an emergency measure for an emergency need,” Stewart stressed. “We are here to serve hungry people today, but we do not solve food insecurity, and we have been very clear about that.”

Even with an increase to ODSP in 2023, Feed Ontario warned the rates still fall below their value in 2018 ($1,376 when adjusted for inflation) and significantly below the disability-adjusted poverty line ($3,091 per month). Although there has been more funding for ODSP over the past few years, Ontario Works (OW) benefit rates have remained frozen for the last five years. OW recipients continue to receive only $733 per month, the same amount they received in 2018. When accounting for inflation and the rising cost of living, people who receive OW have experienced an 18 percent cut in real income, according to Feed Ontario. 

People who receive these social assistance programs represent approximately 2 out of 3 people who rely on food banks in Ontario.  

Nicholls said, “the disconnect between policy levers and the impacts in the community are distinct.”

The PC government has pledged to increase minimum wage in October to $17.20, up from $16.55 per hour, but food bank leaders say the difference it will make is negligible. 

Stewart said the current landscape shows society has “gone in the wrong direction” and “accepted the dismantling of the social safety net over the last 30 years.” 

“Unfortunately, in a lot of circumstances, people who are living in poverty and all of our visitors that we represent are not the people [the government is] trying to impress so they forget about the urgency of need for the people who are living day to day. They know the data we have. We share this data every single month, and we yell it from the rooftops, but until they see this sense of urgency, there's not going to be change.”

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Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock

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