Edmonton's campus food bank programs seeing unprecedented demand

From floor to ceiling, the shelves at the University of Alberta's campus food bank are full.

It's early November, and the organization has just finished their Halloween food drive.

It's the biggest donation push of the year, and it brought in nearly 2,300 kilograms of food: piles of packaged noodles and row after row of canned soup and vegetables, stacked up high. 

Surveying the stores, executive director Erin O'Neil says she expects the supply to run out within a month. 

"Five years ago we would have never expected to be in a position like this," she says.

She says they used to serve no more than about 200 people in a month but now those numbers regularly surpass 1,000. So far, the record is 1,646 people served this past March, but the numbers during the fall semester so far are almost just as high: 1,637 clients received food hampers in October.

"We are very concerned that this is the new normal," O'Neil said.

Student leaders are raising alarms about food insecurity among post-secondary students as rising living costs, especially grocery inflation, add up on top of tuition increases.

How rising food costs are impacting university students

1 year ago

Duration 2:37

Paying your way through a post-secondary degree has never been easy, but students at two Edmonton universities say inflation has them feeling the pinch more than ever - and support agencies are struggling to keep up.

The United Conservative government began cutting operating grants to universities and colleges in their first budget after the 2019 election. In total, the University of Alberta saw $222 million in budget cuts over three years.

"Exceptional" tuition hikes at the U of A followed, with increases ranging from 16 to 104 per cent, depending on the program, starting in fall 2022. Tuition went up again — 5.5 per cent for domestic students and 6.5 per cent for international students — starting this fall.

MacEwan University also raised tuition an average of seven per cent across their programs in 2020, and this year, the school's board of governors increased costs for domestic students by 5.5 per cent.

After successive cuts, the province's 2023 budget included a 0.6 per cent increase to public funding for post-secondary schools. It's part of a three-year plan to add 10,000 post-secondary seats across Alberta.

The provincial government also rolled out a tuition cap this year that limits annual hikes to two per cent for domestic students. International student tuition, which can be up to five times higher than domestic fees, remains unregulated.

In a statement, Mackenzie Blyth, press secretary for Advanced Education Minister Rajan Sawhney, pointed to the tuition cap as one of the government actions geared toward making post-secondary education more affordable. 

"We also have a wide range of student aid programs, including loans, grants, bursaries, awards, and scholarships – all of which can be used to support living costs," Blyth said.

"Post-secondary institutions in Alberta have the ability to allocate funding towards programs addressing student affordability, including campus food banks."

Mariana Feijoo is an intern at the U of A's food bank, and she also relies on it as a client. She works three part-time jobs, but that doesn't cover all her expenses, including her international tuition fees.

"Without the food bank, I wouldn't be able to, right now, pay rent and pay for food," she said.

Feijoo came to Edmonton from Mexico in 2017. When she first arrived, a trip to the grocery store virtually never exceeded $100 — an impossibility now, she said, especially if she wants to buy meat or dairy.

"It has definitely made me stretch very thin in every way to study and pay for everything."

'Do I buy a textbook or do I get my next meal?'

MacEwan University student Matt Kraus returned to post-secondary in 2021 for his bachelor of commerce, about a decade after finishing a music diploma.

He said the cost pressures of student life feel different this time.

"That minimum bar in order to maintain an affordable lifestyle, it's just that much higher," he said.

"Wages are sticky, so they haven't really increased along with the outsizing of your day-to-day costs."

Now in his 30s, he said he has been able get part-time jobs that pay well, and that helps. But there have also been times he's skipped class to pick up a shift.

"I don't know how other people are doing it, especially younger students."

Students' Association of MacEwan University president Gabriel Ambutong said daily living and education costs, plus the psychological toll of worrying about them, is a big concern for students.

"They're looking at, do I buy a textbook or do I get my next meal? There really are decisions like that happening," he said.

MacEwan's confidential food hamper program, the Pantry, has also seen demand jump. Ambutong said it's up 61 per cent this September compared to last year, and many of those seeking help are international students.

"These are Band-Aid measures that we can do on our end," he said.

"But it's not getting the root cause of the issue."

At the U of A food bank, O'Neil said she sees a direct line from tuition increases to more students showing up at their doors. The amount of food the service gives out has quadrupled in the last four years.

Where they used to rely solely on donations, O'Neil said they now have to buy food to meet the need, spending roughly $10,000 each month.

"We've increased our fundraising, but if that happens again next year, it will be increasingly difficult to meet those fundraising demands."