Fewer Turning to Food Banks in Ontario, Report Finds
Description:
The number of people using Ontario food banks has declined for the second year in a row, a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak picture painted in a report being released today.
The report by the Ontario Association of Food Banks found about 318,500 people each month – mostly a collection of working poor families, seniors, single parents and disabled – turned to a local food bank in the province this year, a drop of 3.6 per cent from the 330,000 who used food banks each month last year.
Last year, the numbers dropped 2.4 per cent over the previous year following increases since 2001.
But the association's third annual hunger survey of nearly 300 food banks, stretching from Thunder Bay to Ottawa to Toronto, also looked at factors that might lead people to turn to food banks and found two-thirds are paying the high cost of private market rents, as opposed to living in subsidized housing. Some food banks reported more than half of their clients also pay for their own heating, electricity and water.
Type of Resource:
Newspaper
Publication Date:
2007
Volume:
2007
Issue:
08/11/2007
Location:
Toronto