Food banks grew up in Canada in 1982 to cope with unexpected hardship from the recession of the early 1980s.
No one thought that they would become institutionalized, serving 700,000 Canadians every month for most of the past 15 years. Instead of stepping up to help bail out this overflowing bathtub as we do this time of year, why can’t we just turn off the tap? Why are 94,000 people in B.C. still using food banks? Why are almost half of them seniors (18%) and children (26%), and another 12% from working families? How did we get to the point where the Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB) has 13 trucks and vans, a 36,000-square-foot warehouse, and almost 30 employees? Are there no other alternatives?
People in the food bank “industry” have some answers, but they won’t make everyone feel full of good cheer.
“At the root of the need is low income, whether in the short or long term,” says a just-released report by Food Bank Canada. “Canada has lost hundreds of thousands of well-paid blue collar jobs over the past 30 years. The jobs that have replaced them are more likely to be low-paid, part-time, and temporary. Access to education and training can be frustratingly beyond reach. For those unable to work, employment insurance (EI) and social assistance have become more difficult to access, and the meagre incomes supplied by these programs make it very difficult for families to afford adequate, nutritious food.”
Food bank organizations would like to see more federal funding for affordable housing, more job training for the most vulnerable Canadians, reduced hours of work to qualify for EI, tax changes to make it easier to leave welfare for work and higher minimum wages.
The Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB) can’t do any of that, but it can do more to address its 30-year inability to reduce emergency handouts at its 15 food depots.
“What we’re doing today is not a sustainable model,” said CEO Aart Schuurman Hess, referring to the GVFB’s new mission to “empower people to nourish themselves by providing access to healthy food, education and training.”
So they’re doing a lot of new things, in addition to what they already do: using bulk buying and food rescue programs to supply more than 100 social agency kitchens; organizing community kitchens where people get together to cook and share a meal; delivering healthy snack bags to needy preschoolers and inner-city kids; helping new moms; teaching school kids how to grow, prepare and appreciate healthy foods.
The GVFB’s new strategy is to get to the heart of what keeps people in poverty, heading toward a community food hub model.
“We need to move away from charity to social enterprise,” said Schuurman.
In one pilot project, the food bank has morphed into a starting place to connect people to limited amounts of free, wholesome food they can choose themselves, as well as fresh food grown by local farmers or in community gardens that they can buy at cost.
Before they go into the food depot, they mingle over coffee and soup and have a chance to talk to each other, to community nurses, nutritionists, credit counsellors. More services will be added.
It takes a village to raze a food bank.
“We’ve never asked people why they’re coming, if they cook at home, what social issues they’re dealing with,” said Schuurman. “So we’ll be using researchers at UBC and SFU to help members speak to me and tell me ‘This is why I’m coming,’ so we can bring in agencies to meet their specific needs.”
“We’re moving from telling sad stories to outlining problems and solutions.”
Bravo. And remember: cash goes a lot farther than a donated food item. •
