Food bank use in Manitoba on rise

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This article was published 01/12/2021 (1623 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The number of Manitobans who use food banks is on the rise again now that federal pandemic income support programs have wound down.

Harvest Manitoba said Wednesday food banks across the province have experienced a 70 per cent increase in new visitors in the last two months, compared with the same period last year.

Since income support programs, such as the Canada Emergency Recovery Benefit, are being phased out, there has been a three to five per cent increase in visits to Harvest Manitoba monthly.

“We haven’t seen numbers this high since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Meaghan Erbus, Harvest’s senior manager of community food network and advocacy, about the report it issued Wednesday.

“Right now, we’re seeing over 80,000 people every month accessing our services, which is interesting, because the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a significant increase, and then it started to sort of plateau.”

Food-bank use dropped when people were receiving COVID-19 income support from Ottawa.

Harvest Manitoba issued the report, the first of its kind, because Erbus said the increase in usage needed to be researched.

Most of those surveyed said they were using food banks because they weren’t able to afford food. Regardless, she said, data from the report – which surveyed 386 food bank users over a six-week period in November 2020 – paints a picture of the average food bank user in Manitoba.

Most respondents were single women, on average just under 50 years old. The vast majority, around 80 per cent, live below Canada’s poverty line and only 13 per cent were employed. Most surveyed said illness or disability prevented them from working. Nearly half of respondents are white, and just over one-third are Indigenous.

In 2020-21, Harvest’s 325 food banks and agencies across the province fed nearly 80,000 people every month, 46 per cent of whom were children.

Erbus said the organization expects the increase in food bank usage to mirror the experience of the 2008 recession. The report notes that spikes in usage during an economic crisis never return to pre-crisis levels.

Social programs are failing, Erbus said, and governments should consult with people who use programs so they reflect their needs.

“We hope… we’re providing a platform for people to speak their truth or say what’s going on in their lives, (which) will help us to further insist on having people living with low income at the table when potential policy is being discussed,” she said. “I think we need to ensure that the policies invest in people and that they make a lasting positive change in people’s lives.”

Among those affected is Rina Hermkens, who uses Harvest Manitoba and has volunteered there for eight years — when she and her late husband were camped out near the food bank while in the midst of a crack cocaine addiction.

The CEO at the time, David Northcott, invited the couple into the building and provided them food and a shower. Then they were invited to volunteer, and Hermkens said it was the beginning of her journey to getting sober.

“We started volunteering one day a week, and that day, we wouldn’t use. Then it was two days a week, then three days, and we eventually started getting our lives back together,” she said.

Today, Hermkens is sober, and still uses food banks from time to time. She’s not surprised more people are using food banks every year, and noted they often provide goods people may not know about, such as pet food and can openers.

“I know from life that there are a lot of people like me out there that just haven’t been given the hand up,” she said. “Some people don’t want to take the hand because they don’t trust. Some people haven’t had someone as kind to them to help them.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca