Mississauga resident-led initiative tackles food insecurity amid affordability crisis, feeds 2,000 people every month

Bill Graham gets out of bed every morning with one burning mission in mind.

In these harsh economic times his compassion has never been needed more. 

There are nearly 100,000 households across Peel in need of some form of housing assistance and in 2023, there were 258 known encampments reported in Peel, more than double the previous year.

Bill and his wife Shirley saw what was happening around them. Wanting to do more to fill gaps in a broken system and help others avoid falling through them, the longtime Mississauga residents started their own food drive initiative nearly five years ago. 

In March 2020, at the outset of the pandemic when all services that were not deemed essential were closed, Bill and Shirley started the first Free Food Table — an effort that now serves more than 2,000 people a month who cannot afford to put food on their table.

While they had served families and individuals in need for many years through the Knights of Columbus and other groups in the community, Bill said “this was a new situation needing a different solution.” Adopting a Knights of Columbus slogan they felt was appropriate for the work they were doing, the Graham’s motto behind the initiative became “Leave no neighbour behind”. 

“Why do we do it?” he asks himself. “Well, once you start it, how do you stop it? These people, you get to know them and they're friends really.” With the cost of living becoming increasingly out of reach for many individuals in Mississauga and the province, Bill says the demand has only gone up.

“The number of people needing it has grown over the years, but also more people are finding out about us,” he told The Pointer. “We've got a system that just doesn't really work.”
 

Bill and Shirley Graham started their Free Food Table program in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)

With rental rates at a historic high, tenants in Mississauga are paying $2,200, on average, for a one-bedroom apartment. Tack a second bedroom on and you are looking at an average of $2,700 and up. Between 2007 and 2023, average rents in Mississauga increased by 71 percent while the average wages in Ontario increased only 53 percent, according to numbers gathered by City staff. An analysis by Peel Region staff using income and house-price data showed that $40-an-hour is required in Peel to afford average rents, while many work at minimum wage jobs.

Numbers released in October revealed the Region’s housing plan continues to fail residents, with Peel meeting only three percent of the local supportive housing need, eight percent of the transitional housing need and 34 percent of the affordable housing need. Despite being historically underfunded, emergency shelter operations — the last line of defence before residing on the street — are only meeting 75 percent of the need, and that’s with tens of millions now being spent annually by the Region for overflow hotel spaces.

Food Banks Mississauga, which has witnessed an explosion of demand over the past four years, has predicted that by 2027 the organization will have over 100,000 clients in need of its services. Mississauga property owners are also staring at an 8.8 percent increase to their annual taxes, including a 3.3 percent increase for the City’s share of the overall bill, meaning a resident in Mississauga with a home assessed at $730,000 will pay more than $600 extra for property taxes and water in 2025. Many on fixed incomes have to sacrifice food to cover all the other bills.

Bill and Shirley now fill tables at five locations along Dundas Street daily and two small food boxes once or twice a week, providing six to seven tonnes of food each month. They put food and other essentials, including blankets and sleeping bags, on the tables with the support of individuals in the community, food banks and the Knights of Columbus — help Bill says he greatly appreciates. The tables are filled daily and sometimes twice on Saturdays with 15 grocery-sized bags of food to meet the growing need. 

Food Banks Mississauga’s latest numbers from its annual report revealed 56,000 — or 1 in 13 — residents use its services, numbers anticipated to rise without sufficient intervention and policy change from upper levels of government. 

Food Banks Mississauga has warned that without government intervention, by 2027, 100,000 residents will be in need of the organization’s services.

(Food Banks Mississauga) 

As more and more people struggle, provincial funding is not being spent in the right places, Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish recently said, particularly in Peel where each resident is being shortchanged approximately $578, on average, every year for social services compared to other comparable municipalities.  

But Doug Ford’s PC government has managed to scrape up $3 billion to give every Ontarian a $200 cheque — a strategy that has been criticized as a pre-election gift that will not help people living in encampments — which Ford is aggressively pushing to remove.

“I find it absolutely appalling, the millions we’re getting to take care of homeless people, meanwhile everybody who never asked for it is getting $3 billion in $200 cheques,” Parrish said during a January 9 regional meeting. “And the people who are living in the encampments don’t get them because they’ve never filed income tax and their nobody’s little kid, so this is just disgusting.”
 

The Free Food Tables assist more than 2,000 people monthly in Mississauga.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)
 

Although people experiencing homelessness are often faced with stigma, Bill said he has never had a negative experience in his years providing the food table service. “We've treated them with respect, and we've always been treated with the same respect.” People’s perspective on homelessness must change, he said, before we can see any real policy advancements.

“While the assistance of folks is important and appreciated, to me it is important that people see what we are doing and to meet the people we are privileged to serve.” While he does not have the resources on his own to expand beyond the five tables currently operating, he recognizes there is the demand for more across Mississauga. He and Shirley often serve people that have not eaten for several days. 

“We do need more of them. A lot of people say there should be tables on Lakeshore, and there should be, and if anyone wants to start one I'll help you get it going because they need them there. They need them all over.”

“People count on them and we want to help them. I have a hard time living with the idea that a person's hungry with nothing to eat,” he said. “And there's times I've come across people that have said, ‘Hey, we didn't eat today. We didn't eat yesterday,’ and at this day and age, I've got a really hard time accepting that that can be, and I'm very thankful and very fortunate that we can help.”

Bill Graham and his wife Shirley now fill tables in five locations along Dundas Street daily and two small food boxes once or twice a week.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)

In wake of the growing numbers of people living in precarious situations, Ontario’s Big City Mayors (OBCM) have also called on the Province to establish a ministry with dedicated funding to prevent homelessness. The OBCM subsequently launched the ‘Solve the Crisis’ campaign which outlined several recommendations previously approved by the organization, including that the provincial government create a designated ministry “with the appropriate funding and powers as a single point of contact to address the full spectrum of housing needs as well as mental health, addictions and wrap-around supports.” The request followed a motion approved by OBCM in June that called on the PCs to officially make homelessness a health priority and acknowledge the humanitarian crisis as the numbers of unhoused individuals and those suffering from mental health and addictions “grows exponentially.” 

While governments continue to neglect the affordability crisis, the Graham’s free food tables will keep trying to fill the gaps where they can. 

“It's hard not to do it when you know there's families in need,” Bill says. “And every morning that I say, ‘I don't think I should do the tables,’ I know darn well that I better get out and do them, or I'll be mad at myself for not doing it.”

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock 

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