Community food banks bracing for deep cuts to supplies next year

The Ottawa Food Bank says it will have to cut its food transfers to partner agencies by up to half next year, leaving some community food banks fearing collapse in the face of overwhelming demand.

"This is going to impact people across the city," said Ottawa Food Bank CEO Rachael Wilson. "More people are going to be turned away, but the reality is we just don't have the funding to be able to keep up with that demand."

The Ottawa Food Bank acts as a centralized supplier to dozens of partner agencies that rely on it for food. Wilson said it ran a deficit this year and expect to run more in the years ahead, as food bank usage surges 90 per cent higher than 2019 levels.

She said those deficits will cut deep into financial reserves built up during the pandemic. Wilson said the Ottawa Food Bank already cut back on food shipments to its partners last year.

Next year's cut is expected in January, and could vary between 20 and 50 per cent, depending on the agency.

"This is an impossible situation to be in," she said. "This is the only option we have."

Wilson called on the city to commit $5.6 million in bridge funding to help fill the gap, as councillors considered an anti-poverty strategy on Tuesday.

The strategy names food security as one of five priority pillars, but it contributes no new funding apart from $150,000 to help low-income people access community tax clinics.

Local food banks feeling the burn

Barbara Carroll of the Debra Dynes Family House and Food Bank said it's facing a "dramatic escalation in requests for food."

Carroll said Tuesday was delivery day at her food bank, but that food will be almost gone by Wednesday afternoon.

"We will be out of staples. We will not have milk. we will not have bread. We will not have eggs. We may not have meat. We will be very low on produce," she said.

Carroll said Ottawa is facing one of the biggest food crises it has ever seen, and urged the city to take action now.

"It is awful as an agency to feel how inadequate we are on what is a very serious problem," she said.

Other community food bank executives told the same story: unprecedented demand and diminishing supplies that force them to limit access or maintain wait lists. They say they're turning people away, and some may be forced to close.

"Imagine having no food to feed your family and being told your food bank appointment will be in five weeks' time," said Yolanda Jones of Pinecrest Terrace Community House, whose food bank has faced a 71 per cent increase in visits in just two years.

"Another cut will be coming in January. A 50 per cent cut. People are waiting five weeks. Are they going to wait 10 weeks for a food bank appointment? These are people with no food in their cupboards."

Municipal, provincial or federal responsibility?

Clara Freire, the city's general manager of community and social services, said the city now contributes $4.7 million toward food security programs. She said the 2025 draft budget will likely contain an increase to keep pace with inflation, but committing anything above that will be up to city council.

Yet she knows that the challenges facing the food banks — and their clients — are real.

"We agree with what was said. There are people really struggling to pay for food and to access fresh nutritious food in this community," she said.

The proposed anti-poverty strategy comes with five pillars: food security, employment, financial security, economic development and simplified pathways to accessing services.

It sets out short-term actions to make progress on those goals, including a food security forum and mentorship programs for youth.

It commits $150,000 to improve co-ordination of community tax clinics, a sum that comes in below the $3-million investment advocates were calling for.

'We don't have a choice'

Amanda Bonacci of the South East Ottawa Community Health Centre said those millions would allow clinics to hire more staff and could open up a total of $72 million in unclaimed tax credits and benefits for 13,500 low-income residents.

In her view, "there's no better program" for poverty reduction. But at tax time, spaces fill up within two weeks of opening the phone lines for bookings.

Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster said she would support the call for bridge funding for food banks and more money for tax clinics.

"I think that we don't have a choice," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, we can't let people go hungry and we can't let federal and provincial benefits that are owed to people living in poverty, we can't let them go without that, because again it downloads more costs onto our city."

But Troster said it's not fair that a cash-strapped city is left bearing the burden for what the federal and provincial governments should be doing.

"We are not funded to solve hunger and to solve homelessness, and increasingly we're being asked to do so. That is the quagmire that we're in," she said.

"We are also at the breaking point in terms of our finances."