The head of the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association says hunger is becoming the new normal as people are struggling to get ahead.
June Muir, CEO of UHC-Hub of Opportunities and President of the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association, was at Queen's Park Monday as part of a group addressing provincial leaders about the situation facing food banks.
Feed Ontario, a collective of hunger relief organizations, released a report Monday that found more than 800,000 people in the province turned to emergency food support between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023.
The number is a 38 per cent increase over the pervious year, the largest single-year increase recorded by the province's food bank network.
Muir says during that same time period, over 29,000 unique individuals accessed the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association.
In all there were 199,000 total visits to local food banks, a 23 per cent increase over the previous year.
There was also a 64 per cent increase in visits by people who had never used a food bank before.
Muir says we live in Canada and this shouldn't be happening.
"What's driving here locally, we're hearing people can not afford housing," she says."If they're paying their rent, hydro or gas bill, there's nothing left over for food."
The provincial report also points to precarious work, the erosion of social support programs and a lack of affordable housing as longstanding factors, with the skyrocketing cost of living as a more recent contributor to the demand for food banks.
Muir says hunger is becoming the new norm for Ontario.
"We want to see people have a living wage, be able to buy food, pay for their housing. It's time we do something about the situation. Food banks have become a necessity and it needs to change. We should be here for an emergency situation and not a necessity," she says.
Muir says the numbers speak to what people are going through.
"It is time for changes, time to look at what the key drivers are that are driving people to a food bank," she says. "Having affordable housing, social support programs, just addressing those key issues so that people can afford to purchase food."
The total number of visits to Ontario food banks totalled more than 5.9 million, or 36 per cent more than the previous year.
The report says much of the growth came from first-time visitors, who accounted for two out of five people who used food banks. It notes that's a 41 per cent increase from the previous year.
The Feed Ontario report says food bank usage has gone up for the last seven years in a row.