Document(s) 18 of 34

Introduction

Food banks in Toronto fulfil an extremely valuable mandate: they provide food on an emergency basis to people in need. Moreover, through experience over several years, the food-bank community in Toronto has developed a notably sophisticated understanding of the dimensions and immediate causes of hunger in Toronto. However, despite their stated intentions, these food banks have not succeeded in addressing the structural features of this problem. This failure, though understandable, reflects the limitations of the traditional food-bank system. Insecure access to food is now more entrenched in low-income households than in the early 1980s, when the Daily Bread Food Bank (DBFB) was established. It is now evident that Toronto’s major food-bank network needs to transform itself into an antihunger movement, and the large food bank at the centre of this network (DBFB) should become an antihunger organization.

Background to organized food banks in Toronto

DBFB, the largest food bank in Canada, was established in Toronto in the recession of the early 1980s. In 1982, the year before DBFB commenced operations, Toronto’s unemployment rate was 10%. Although a major restructuring of Canada’s economy was then taking shape, DBFB was supposed to be an emergency response to the growing problem of hunger among jobless low-income people in Toronto. Unfortunately, the problem was not short lived. Despite the original idea being that DBFB would work to put itself out of business (that is, work to eradicate hunger), it is now solidly institutionalized.

Today, almost 15 years since its inception, DBFB shows no sign of closing its doors. On the contrary, DBFB’s operating expenses grew from $49 000 in 1985 to $960 000 in 1996. The increase in its budget supported a vastly expanded food-assistance program, in addition to programs designed to address food security more generally, as well as the human and other resources needed to administer them. DBFB assisted 75 000 people in 1985, but by March 1997, 133 000 people had already been assisted through 140 affiliated agencies administering 160 food programs. In a similar fashion, the quantity of food distributed rose from 800 000 kg (1985) to 24.2 million kg (1995/96). Over the last few years, DBFB also improved its efforts in research, public-policy analysis, and public education. Consequently, since the mid-1980s DBFB’s staff has expanded from 5 to 22.

Figure 1. Toronto food-bank use, 1990–97.
Source: Daily Bread Food Bank’s annual surveys of people assisted by food banks in the Greater Toronto Area.

DBFB now recognizes that acute hunger is not a transient feature of Toronto’s economic life. Although DBFB has diversified its programs over the years, in 1996 it commissioned a major study to assist in transforming the agency from a food bank to an antihunger organization. It is now acknowledged that this transformation would involve rather more effort and thought than previously imagined, especially in public education and community development and mobilization.

Clearly, the initial optimism (wanting to put itself out of business) represented a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem of hunger in the early 1980s, as well as some confusion about how to respond effectively to this problem then and since.

The problem at a glance

The rising long-term trend in numbers of people assisted by DBFB and its member agencies masks significant fluctuation from one period to another — periods of increase invariably follow periods of declining food-bank use (Figure 1). This wavelike sequence, driven by fluctuations in economic activity and changes in welfare-related public policy, indicates a structural fragility in household food security. When times are good, the incidence of hunger appears to diminish, but an economic downturn or paring down of welfare benefits exposes the underlying fragility of low-income people’s access to food.

Less noticeable, however, is how much more entrenched the problem of hunger is becoming.¹ This is evident in the increasing proportion of food recipients who experience the most critical level of hunger (Table 1); the large proportion of parents who cannot adequately feed their children (Table 2); and the increasing proportion of food recipients who require assistance more frequently (9% of households were assisted more than once a month in 1997, up from 5% in 1995). Moreover, the proportion of long-term recipients of food-bank assistance almost doubled between 1995 and 1997: in 1995, 9% of recipients had been food-bank clients for more than 5 years; by

¹ The data used to illustrate the circumstances of food recipients are derived from Daily Bread’s annual survey of people assisted by food banks in the Greater Toronto Area. These surveys involve structured, face-to-face interviews with 800–1 000 randomly chosen food recipients in 30–40 hamper programs.

Table 1. Hunger among food recipients, Toronto, 1995–97.

Source: Daily Bread Food Bank’s annual surveys of people assisted by food banks in the Greater Toronto Area.

^a Survey question was as follows: “How often do you go without a meal because of a lack or shortage of money to buy food?”

^b Survey question was as follows: “During the last three months, on average how often are you hungry because you can’t afford to buy enough food?”

Table 2. Parents whose children are hungry, Toronto, 1995–97.

Source: Daily Bread Food Bank’s annual surveys of people assisted by food banks in the Greater Toronto Area.

^a Survey question was as follows: “How often do children in your household go without a meal because of a lack or shortage of money to buy food?”

^b Survey question was as follows: “During the last three months, on average how often do your children eat less than they should because you can’t afford to buy enough food for them?”

Figure 2. Long-term and more recent food recipients, 1997.
Note: long-term = >5 years; frequent users = once or more per month.
Source: Daily Bread Food Bank’s annual survey of people assisted by food banks in the Greater Toronto Area.

1997, the share of long-term recipients had risen to 15%. In addition, the circumstances of these long-term recipients are particularly worrisome (Figure 2). For example, long-term recipients are much more likely than others to be disabled or to be without a high-school diploma, which makes long-term recipients least able to benefit from employment opportunities.

At least three sets of factors explain these trends:

• Notwithstanding the upward trend in employment in Toronto since the early 1990s, the high level of food-bank use is consistent with generally high unemployment in the first half of the 1990s (Figure 3). However, clear sequences of expansion and decline in the numbers of people assisted reflect changes in unemployment to some extent. The increase in food-bank use from 1991 to 1993 corresponded to a period of particularly high unemployment, whereas the decrease from 1993 to 1995 reflected a lower unemployment rate.
• Although the unemployment rate continued to fall, food-bank use actually increased in late 1995 and 1996 after the Government of Ontario cut welfare benefits by more than 21% in October 1995. Food-bank use increased after the cuts because a larger proportion of welfare recipients could no longer pay their rent from the reduced shelter portion of their welfare payment (Figure 4) and had to draw on their basic allowance for this (that is, their food money). Food-bank use declined to some extent by May 1997, but the extent to which this represents a trend is still unclear.

Figure 3. Unemployment rates in Toronto, 1992–95.
Source: Board of Trade of Metro Toronto, 1996.

Figure 4. Food recipients whose rent exceeded the welfare shelter limit, 1995 and 1996.
Source: Daily Bread Food Bank’s annual surveys of people assisted by food banks in the Greater Toronto Area.

• A rising trend toward part-time rather than full-time work hampered the reduction in food-bank use normally expected from greater employment opportunities. Only a minority of food recipients have jobs (9% in 1995; 12% in 1997). Although 40% of employed food recipients had full-time jobs in 1995, the full-time complement fell to 26% in 1997. Ideally, employed food recipients gradually recover their ability to pay for their own food, thereby causing a gradual decline in the total number of people requiring food-bank assistance. However, the shift to part-time work means that recently employed food recipients are unable to withdraw from food-bank assistance over the short or medium term because of the insufficiency of part-time wages.

Clearly, the traditional food-bank system has not in 15 years made any difference to hunger or insecurity of access to food in Toronto. DBFB has failed not only to put itself out of business but also to get a public-policy agenda entrenched to systematically address hunger and insecurity of access to food. This is largely attributable to the organization’s singular (though not exclusive) focus, until recently, on the traditional food-bank system.

The problem with the traditional food-bank system

DBFB’s early optimism was fundamentally in conflict with its focus on the traditional food-bank system. Traditional food banks are geared to providing emergency assistance (hunger alleviation) but not to addressing hunger as a structural phenomenon.

Food banks solicit food from the public and corporations, in addition to purchasing food from producers. The food banks then distribute the food to people in need (Figure 5). In so doing, food banks assist people in meeting their immediate needs only and are unable to accomplish much else. Because food banks depend on public and corporate goodwill, they are often unwilling to pursue social change in any determined way. Also, food banks rely to a large extent on volunteer labour and very low-key fundraising, so they often do not have the human or financial resources to undertake the research, advocacy, and community mobilization needed to systematically address

Figure 5. Hunger-alleviation model.

hunger. Of course, the relative importance of different sources of food and methods of food solicitation may change without influencing the basic philosophy or practice of a traditional food bank.

DBFB has recognized the limitations of the traditional food-bank system. In fact, over the years the organization has moved beyond the traditional system, but it remains essentially a traditional food bank, rendering emergency assistance. DBFB’s agenda still does not fully incorporate the functions of an antihunger organization.

An antihunger perspective

To a considerable extent, large food banks such as DBFB, which act as a central resource supporting several dispersed programs, have reached the limits of the alleviation and emergency-assistance model for responding to hunger. If they want to address the structural issues driving hunger and insecurity of access to food, they must transform themselves into antihunger organizations.

This expanded role is difficult to define straightforwardly, but the goal of antihunger organizations is to severely reduce the incidence of hunger and eliminate the need for food banks as welfare agencies. This “eradication” model forces food banks to become antihunger organizations or at least to fulfil some of the functions of an antihunger organization. This includes some combination of research, public education, public-policy advocacy, one-on-one advocacy, and community mobilization. This transformation should not necessarily lead food banks to jettison their current alleviation and emergency-assistance programs and services — after all, people’s basic needs still have to be addressed. In any case, the basic principles underlying an antihunger perspective include the following:

• The notion of a human right should be meaningfully extended to include access to food;
• Marginalized people should be empowered to insert their interests into public-policy agendas; and
• Social-service agencies, including food banks, should be challenged to render services in ways that uphold the dignity of their clients (that is, low-income people).

However, to function as antihunger organizations, food banks face some important challenges. People mostly view food banks, as the food banks present themselves: rather benign charities. Because food banks depend on individuals and corporations donating food for hungry people, they depend on the sheer goodwill of others for their success. Consequently, when they engage governments and various elites in discussions of appropriate public-policy initiatives and programs, they risk alienating the goodwill that actually makes food available to hungry people. In general, antihunger organizations also risk the charge of acting as special-interest lobbyists, and some may even perceive antihunger advocacy as the self-interest of another set of talking heads. Moreover, with respect to hunger, the term eradication is apt to be misunderstood, because it raises expectations that may not be fulfilled in any known time frame. These challenges suggest that research and public education, in addition to strategic alliances, would be instrumental in any rigorous antihunger agenda.

Food banks and public policy

People should not have to regularly forgo food because they are unemployed or on welfare. In other words, governments have a duty to protect their constituents from hunger. This does not, however, imply that everyone can always satisfy their food needs by normal means; however, public-policy initiatives should always promote secure access to wholesome food, rather than jeopardizing some people’s ability to feed themselves. Although food banks have a vested interest in the latter, they currently have limited capacity to pressure governments or hold them responsible for substantively addressing the problem of hunger.

As it stands, food banks enter public-policy debates after the fact. Obviously, they have no direct access to or influence on government policy and program decision-making processes. Food banks have to struggle to be heard. They cannot afford to undertake the sophisticated and concerted lobbying that other types of organization frequently pursue.

Yet, antihunger organizations have no alternative but to force governments to put hunger on their public-policy agendas. To do this, the organizations have to identify a set of core ideas and proposals and then market them relentlessly in the public sphere. DBFB and similar organizations have already accomplished part of this difficult task, being storehouses of accumulated practical experience and insight into hunger and food security. Nonetheless, the credibility of their antihunger proposals must be demonstrated through research, consultation, and building and maintaining an antihunger movement, including mobilization of low-income people.

Conclusions

Joblessness and less social security have exacerbated the problem of insecurity of food access for low-income people in Toronto. In response, Toronto’s food banks satisfy a limited but important mandate — they provide emergency food assistance. In pursuing this limited mandate, food banks have taken on the institutionalized role of a social-welfare agency. However, food banks need to reconstitute themselves as antihunger organizations so that they can more substantively address the problem of hunger. This new mandate would entail new services and new functions for food banks, along with improvements to their traditional emergency food programs.

Document(s) 18 of 34