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With Ontario food bank use at an all-time high — more than a million people visited one over the past year — Windsor-Essex faces the same pressure to help those in need.
“I think anyone’s concern is that we just won’t have enough food to ensure that everyone who’s battling hunger will be fed,” Mackenzie Adams, communications manager at the UHC — Hub of Opportunity, told the Star.
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Sobering figures released by Feed Ontario Tuesday reveal that a new record has been set for the number of people relying on food banks across the province.
“We want to make sure that anyone who comes through our doors, we can supply them with the means so they don’t have to go to bed hungry,” said Adams, whose organization supports 15 food distribution centres through the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association.
“We know that the the need in our community is increasing, and we want to be that safety net for them.”
The Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association recorded more than 211,000 visits to its member food banks last year, said Adams, with a 27 per cent increase in first-time users alone.
“We know that this trend will continue upward into 2024,” she said, adding the UHC’s own onsite food bank currently serves about 1,500 households per week.
With the rising cost of living, which household incomes fail to keep pace with, and the erosion of social support programs, Feed Ontario said this marks the eighth straight year of surging food bank usage.
The more than a million people in the province who visited a food bank in the past year, according to early figures released from the report, represents a 25-per-cent increase compared to 2022-2023.
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The record usage has amounted to 7.6 million unique visits to food banks across Ontario — a 143-per-cent increase from 2019-2020.
Under the strain of rising demand, Feed Ontario said 69 per cent of food banks are now concerned about insufficient supplies to meet the needs of their communities.
Over a year ago, Adams said the UHC — Hub of Opportunity’s onsite food bank scaled back its distribution, moving from a weekly food hamper to just two per month.
The hampers, which include eggs, proteins, snacks, and other essentials, are designed to support a family for two weeks.
Asked whether local food banks might have to further cut back on hampers to cope with growing demand, Adams told the Star the current system “is working for us, and we’re going to sustain that.
“We are going to keep operating the way that we are operating. People do need to eat, and we have to ensure that those people accessing our food bank are able to be fed.”
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The latest figures come as Ontario’s 2020-2025 Poverty Reduction Strategy enters its final year. The plan was designed to help reduce poverty by tackling affordable housing, employment opportunities, and access to social support.
Feed Ontario is set to release its full 2024 Hunger Report in November.
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