I’ve spent the past week visiting food banks across Toronto, and what I’m witnessing is nothing short of alarming. The scene at North York Harvest Food Bank on a Tuesday morning tells the story better than statistics ever could – lines forming three hours before opening, volunteers frantically packing emergency hampers, and the unmistakable worry etched across too many faces.
“We’re seeing people who never imagined needing our services,” explains Ravi Sharma, operations director at North York Harvest. “Former donors are now clients. That’s how dramatically things have shifted in just two years.”
A new report from Feed Ontario confirms what frontline workers have been saying for months – food banks across our province are breaking under unprecedented demand. Last year alone, Ontario food banks served 800,000 people, a staggering 40 percent increase from pre-pandemic levels. Here in Toronto, the numbers are even more troubling.
Daily Bread Food Bank, one of the city’s largest hunger-relief organizations, now serves twice the number of clients they did in 2019. Their CEO Maria Rodriguez tells me they’re distributing nearly 200,000 meals monthly. “The system was never designed for this volume,” she says during our interview at their Lake Shore Boulevard facility.
What’s driving this surge? The answer is painfully simple: more Torontonians are falling into poverty.
The perfect storm of housing costs, food inflation, and stagnant wages has created what social researchers are calling a “new class of food insecure” – working families who simply can’t stretch their paychecks far enough. Nearly 30 percent of food bank users now report employment income, yet still can’t make ends meet.
“I work full-time and my husband drives Uber on weekends,” says Amara, a mother of two I meet at a Scarborough distribution center. She requested I use only her first name. “After rent and utilities, we have $240 for everything else each month. Everything – food, clothes, medicine, transit. It’s impossible.”
The housing crisis plays a central role in this unfolding emergency. The average Toronto one-bedroom apartment now rents for nearly $2,500 monthly. For minimum wage earners, that represents over 70 percent of their income.
Community advocate Jessie Wong from Toronto Housing Network puts it bluntly: “When housing consumes that much of someone’s budget, food becomes the flexible expense. People are choosing between keeping their apartments and feeding their families.”
The report also highlights disturbing trends in who’s accessing emergency food. Senior visits have increased 60 percent since 2019, while families with children under 18 remain the fastest-growing demographic.
Perhaps most concerning is the nutritional impact. Food banks report difficulty securing fresh produce, dairy and proteins – precisely the items that have seen the steepest price increases. A basket of nutritious groceries costs the average Toronto family 23 percent more than it did two years ago.
“We’re giving out more processed foods than we’d like,” admits volunteer coordinator Mei Lin at The Stop Community Food Centre. “Fresh fruits and vegetables are what people request most, but they’re the hardest items for us to consistently provide.”
The strain on the system is showing. Three smaller neighborhood food banks in Toronto’s east end have reduced their hours this year due to supply shortages. Others report having to limit the frequency of visits or reduce portion sizes.
While the province announced a $10 million emergency food bank funding initiative last month, frontline workers say it barely addresses the scope of need.
“That funding helps, but it’s treating symptoms rather than causes,” explains Dr. Valerie Carson, social policy researcher at Ryerson University. “Without addressing affordable housing and inadequate social assistance rates, we’re just putting bandages on gaping wounds.”
Community responses have been heartening. Local businesses like Longo’s Markets have increased their food recovery programs, diverting unsold but perfectly edible items to distribution networks. The Toronto Foundation launched an emergency hunger relief fund that raised $3.2 million from private donors in just six weeks.
But charity alone cannot solve structural poverty. The report concludes with urgent recommendations: increasing minimum wage to reflect actual living costs, expanding affordable housing, and reforming social assistance programs that currently leave recipients well below the poverty line.
As I finish my coffee with Amara, she shares something that stays with me. “The hardest part isn’t the hunger,” she says quietly. “It’s explaining to my kids why we can’t have the same food as their friends. How do you tell a seven-year-old about inflation?”
It’s a question that should haunt all of us. In one of Canada’s wealthiest cities, we’re witnessing a hunger crisis that demands not just our charity, but our collective action.
