Crushed by debt after abusive relationship, woman who worked 80-hour weeks turned to Harvest Manitoba for help
Women still make up majority of food bank users, new Harvest Manitoba report says
A Winnipeg woman says overnight, she went from having a middle-class lifestyle with a household income of over $100,000 a year to having only noodles to eat.
Her finances were devastated by debt her ex-husband forced her to rack up on her credit cards and the cost of living this year, she said. After leaving her abusive marriage, she had to turn to a food bank for help.
"I walked away from a marriage of 10 years with no savings in the bank, and it just baffles me how I ended up in that position," the woman said during an interview in the apartment she shares with a roommate.
CBC has agreed not to share her name because she fears for her safety.
She is one of the record number of people who turned to food banks this year, according to Harvest Manitoba's latest report on the state of hunger across the province.
The food bank network interviewed almost 400 food bank users between August and October 2022 for its report. It's the second year the organization has done the survey, and as was the case last year, it found women make up the majority of food bank users.
It's believed women, who accounted for 69 per cent of the survey's respondents, are overrepresented as food bank clients "due to having more part-time, low-paying jobs … and because they were often the sole or primary provider/caregiver for their children," the report reads.
Starting from scratch
The woman says after leaving her husband, she worked long hours as a health-care aide to support herself.
"I would sometimes work 80 hours a week, and I took advantage of the fact that I could work overtime because I needed to maximize my income," she said.
But that overtime pay disappeared into a black hole, because of climbing expenses for rent and gas to get to work, and debt she needed to clear, she said.
"It got to the point where I had pretty much no money in my bank account and I had to wait three days until payday," she said.
"I was eating ramen noodles to survive, and that wasn't easy."
That's when she reached out to Harvest Manitoba.
"I called them and they didn't ask me any questions like, 'Why do you need food?' or anything like that," the woman said.
"I just explained that I need help with food."
Employment barriers, income pressure for women
Meaghan Erbus, Harvest's director of network, advocacy and education, says many of the women interviewed for the survey said they face serious employment barriers.
Erbus says 16 per cent of women surveyed last year said they were forced to stay home from work to care for children during the COVID-19 pandemic — a number that was virtually unchanged this year.
"It is very connected to income. So whether it be a single parent or a multi-parent household … their incomes often create the reality of their life, their challenges," said Erbus.
"Women that are single that are accessing our services often have a more difficult time having to pay for child care and things like that."
Kalyn Connelly, the director of communications and fundraising at the West Central Women's Resource Centre — one of the 325 agencies that gets support from Harvest Manitoba — says food insecurity is a growing concern to its clients.
"We know that there are more people in need than there are hot meals available in soup kitchens," Connelly said in an email.
She said every week, the centre supplements its meal programs with food from Harvest Manitoba.
"The need in our community is greater than ever, and the support from Harvest helps to supplement the kitchen's weekly menu to assist some members of our community who are experiencing food insecurity," Connelly said.
That's help the Winnipeg woman who left her husband says she couldn't have managed without.
Harvest "was really, really instrumental in my ability to be more independent and leave an abusive situation," she said.
"It gave me hope and it gave me the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and to know that there are people that care."
CBC Manitoba's Make the Season Kind campaign kicked off on Friday morning, with a full day of programming and music.
How to give
This year, there are 3 ways to donate:
- Call 1-204-982-3581 (donation lines will be open from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 2).
- Donate online.
- Drop off food items at Harvest Manitoba, 1085 Winnipeg Avenue.
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