Toronto food banks saw record number of visits in June

Toronto’s largest food bank is sounding the alarm after a record number of visits last month.

According to the Daily Bread Food Bank, there were 171,631 client visits to food banks in the month of June and close to 8,000 new clients accessed their services.

Prior to the pandemic, food banks were seeing about 60,000 client visits per month.

“In our 30 plus years of serving the city of Toronto, Daily Bread has never served as many individuals as we did this past June,” CEO Neil Hetherington told CTV News Toronto.

“The problem is systemic and it deals with a lack of affordable housing, a lack of income security and incomes that are simply not keeping pace with inflation.”

The rate of inflation in Canada has hit a level not seen since 1983 at 7.7 per cent in May. This, in combination with rising food and housing costs, is having a significant impact on people’s finances.

Food prices, for example, have increased by just under 10 per cent in the past year. Hetherington says that works out to be about $1,300 more a year for an average family of four.

“We’re spending more and squeezed and therefore have to come to a food bank,” he said.

A volunteer sorts through food donations at the Daily Bread Food Bank. (Craig Wadman/CTV News Toronto)

The food bank said they are delivering close to 100,000 lbs of food to their network of agencies in Toronto per day. Hetherington adds the Daily Bread’s food purchasing budget has had to rise from $1.5 million per year pre-pandemic to $13 million this year due to increased demand. Donations, he added, have simply not been enough to feed all the clients who require their services.

“We are sounding the alarm bells,” Hetherington said. “We are saying there is a significant problem in this city. We know about it and we are asking government to do something about it.”

In May, Toronto food banks reported about 160,000 client visits per month, with officials projecting that number to rise to about 225,000 client visits.