Ontario food banks fear rising demand will outpace supply, decades after they were deemed temporary

Food banks aren't supposed to exist in 2022.

They were started in Canada about 40 years ago as a temporary response to the recession in the 1980s.

So it's disheartening to Carolyn Stewart, executive director of Feed Ontario, that food banks are not only still needed, but demand is growing at an incredible rate.

"I think what it really shows for us is that it's increasingly more difficult ... to escape poverty today than it was 40 years ago," she said.

"But on top of that, that the changes and disinvestments that we've made in social assistance programs and housing, and that today's quality of employment, are just making it increasingly inaccessible for people to have a standard quality of living here in Ontario."

One dollar "is not stretching as far" right now, she said.

"People are doing their very best, but it's virtually impossible to afford everything, and so people are having to turn to food banks for help. And as much as food banks are the first people to say they wish we didn't have to exist and we would gladly close our doors if the need was not there, the need just continues to grow."

Feed Ontario, an organization made up of 1,200 partner food banks, released its most recent Hunger Report on Monday, and it doesn't mince words about the growing need in this province.

Between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, more than 587,000 people in Ontario accessed a food bank, with more than 4.3 million visits.

"This marks a 15 per cent increase and 42 per cent increase respectively over the last two years and the sixth consecutive year that food bank use has risen," the report says.

"While it was initially hoped that rapidly escalating food bank use was the result of an acute set of circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than three years later, food bank use has only continued to increase."

WATCH | Windsor residents talk about the rise in food bank usage:

The Hunger Report notes that in the first nine months of 2022, the number of people accessing food banks increased 24 per cent over the same time period in 2021.

Of those, one in three people was seeking help from the local food bank for the first time.