Hunger an issue for one in eight Toronto region households, says new report
Rachel Gray, head of Toronto’s Stop Community Food Centre, said that in a city full of restaurants, “there is a brutal irony to the idea that so many people are hungry.”

thestar.com
April 7, 2016
By May Warren

For Gary Williams, one of the best parts of the day is getting to meet the people from all over the world who come in to the Daily Bread Food Bank.

The 35-year-old volunteers two days a week there and encounters people from Ukraine, Sri Lanka and, last week, a Syrian refugee couple.

Many don’t speak English, but he uses Google Translate to welcome them to Canada and ask them about their children in their own languages.

“That’s how I really get to know people, it’s how I can understand them,” he said during a break from signing in clients.

Williams would love to explore more of the world, but “money has been tight” for his family of six. He uses the food bank himself, picking up “necessities” like frozen meat, Kraft Dinner and cereal whenever he has a shift, trying to stretch his household budget to make ends meet.

He’s not alone.

According to a new report from food policy researchers led by the University of Toronto, 12.6 per cent of households - one in eight - in the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA) experienced “food insecurity” in 2014.

This includes people like Williams who use food banks. It also includes people who don’t make it through the doors of a food bank but worry about having enough to eat or sometimes go a whole day without eating because they can’t afford to.

In the report, which pulls data from Statistics Canada’s Community Health Survey, Toronto is slightly above the national number of 12 per cent. The report’s lead investigator, University of Toronto nutrition professor Valerie Tarasuk, said it’s worrying that the statistic is hardly changed since 2008, when the province’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy was introduced.

“It’s a very, very high number, and the fact that that number hasn’t moved means that this problem hasn’t gotten any better,” said Tarasuk.

“When we use words like poverty, maybe we don’t take it seriously that in some cases, what we’re talking about is people not having enough to eat,” she said.

“We’re talking about people who are struggling seriously.”

Rachel Gray, the executive director of Toronto’s Stop Community Food Centre estimates that “for every one person that makes it to a food bank there are four to five people who are struggling.”

In a city like Toronto, with no shortage of restaurants, “when you think about that, there is a brutal irony to the idea that so many people are hungry,” she said.

Richard Matern, senior manager of research for Daily Bread, said it’s important to remember that just because someone doesn’t come to a food bank doesn’t mean that they’re not dealing with hunger.
“People may have a sense of pride that prevents them from coming,” he said.

“Or they didn’t feel they need it enough,” he said, adding they also may not have the TTC fare to get there.

The study also found that, nationally, 61 per cent of households whose major source of income was social assistance were classified as food-insecure. But at least one person was working in 62 per cent of food-insecure households, like Williams’.

His wife works at a catering company, but he’s had trouble finding a job because he has seizures and is afraid of what might happen if he had one in the workplace. It’s tough to make ends meet, but he does what he can.

“It’s a big task, but, you know what, I’m a soldier,” he said.

Williams said he doesn’t mind early-morning volunteer shifts at the food bank because he’s used to waking at the crack of dawn from the years spent in the shelter system.

After running away from a foster home when he was 16, Williams said, he ended up “on the streets,” sleeping in Nathan Phillips Square and church basements. “I used to get into trouble almost all the time,” he said.

“I never usually find trouble, trouble comes to me, and then I end up getting carried away into it.”

He was homeless for 12 years before he met his wife and was able to turn his life around.

He calls the Daily Bread Food Bank “a second home.”

“I wouldn’t be here without it.”