About 200 volunteers prepared to sort and pack urgently needed food donations at the Daily Bread Food Bank center in Etobicoke on Saturday.
Daily Bread CEO Neil Hetherington said the annual sorting comes at a time when the use of food banks has reached historic levels.
“We're seeing the highest level of use of the food bank,” he told CBC Toronto. “At the end of the calendar, we'll be at 3.75 million visits a year. It took us 38 years to serve one million customer visits.”
Visits are up 25 percent from last year, the food bank said in a news release, a number 4.5 times higher than pre-pandemic levels. The charity also said more than one in 10 Torontonians depend on its services to feed their families and themselves.
Food bank use in Toronto is once again at an all-time high. That's according to Daily Bread and North York Harvest Food Banks' annual 'Who's Hungry' report. The report found a 36 per cent increase over last year, in terms of the number of Torontonians accessing food banks, and industry leaders say their calls for help are going unanswered. Tyler has a lot of cheese.
While many households are busy shopping for the holidays, volunteer Julie Holmen said the sorting program allows families to donate their time to a great cause.
“It's an uplifting experience to go in and it's a simple thing to do,” she said.
“It's really heartbreaking to think that there are people who can't provide those basic needs for their families, let alone all the extra things that people want to be able to give their families this holiday season.”
Affordable housing is one solution, says the CEO
One of the policy solutions that could reduce food insecurity is to increase the city's affordable housing stock, Hetherington said.
“My hope is that there are thousands of Torontonians who find themselves in decent, affordable housing next holiday season … and so don't have to use food charities next holiday,” he said.
In an email, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing said the province “has a foot on the table” when it comes to investing in housing.
“Over the next 3 years, we're investing a record $3 billion in affordable housing, combating homelessness, and emergency shelter assistance. Just last week, we announced an additional targeted investment of $75 million to help connect campers to needed housing,” said spokeswoman Emma Testani.
In Toronto, housing remains a top priority for policymakers, according to Abigail Bond, the city's executive director of the Housing Secretariat.
“In 2024, approximately 5,200 new rent-geared-to-income, affordable rental and rent-controlled homes were approved, bringing the total number of homes in the city's rent-controlled housing pipeline to more than 36,420,” she said in an email. CBC Toronto.
“The need for more housing is urgent. More needs to be done and the city cannot do it alone.”
