Comments Off on Busting food bank myths with Feed Ontario!
Busting food bank myths with Feed Ontario!
“Why don’t food bank users just get a job?”
“If we increase social assistance, won’t that make people not want to work?”
Food banks have been getting a lot of media attention due to the overwhelming demand for emergency food support. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation is also being spread about what is causing this crisis.
In December, Feed Ontario hosted a panel discussion to bust some of these myths and misconceptions in our sector. We joined colleagues from food banks across the province to field questions pertaining to our work and the people who access our services.
Chiara Padovani, North York Harvest’s Senior Specialist, Advocacy and Community Engagement, joined the panel to tackle questions from Ontarians about who is really causing the housing crisis, the realities of living on social assistance, and the solutions desperately needed to reduce food bank use.
Watch the full panel below
Thank you to Feed Ontario for having us and thanks to our fellow panelists:
Myles Vanni – Inn of the Good Shepherd, Sarnia
June Muir – UHC -Hub of Opportunities, Windsor
Robbie Donaldson – Salvation Army – New Liskeard
Comments Off on Food for Thought: Food banks need solutions, not scapegoats
Food banks need solutions, not scapegoats
In our Food for Thought series, individuals within North York Harvest Food Bank will share their experience in matters pertaining to food insecurity and poverty. This series will share ideas, lessons learned, and challenge misconceptions as we work toward our vision of a community where all members are able to meet their food needs.
Written by Chiara Padovani; Senior Specialist, Advocacy and Community Engagement
I’ve been a food bank worker at North York Harvest for almost a decade. I have dedicated my life’s work to ensuring people in my community have enough food to eat: a basic human right that is needed in order for people to stay alive. I’m glad the crisis in food banks is getting attention, but I’d like to set the record straight.
Yes, there is a crisis in our food banks. Yes, there’s an affordability crisis in our city. But no, international students or immigrants are not to blame. Everyday, food banks encounter heartbreaking stories of people who through no fault of their own cannot manage to keep themselves and their families fed. They’re battling an impossible system that bears down on them every day with no reprieve. And every day I have to contend with the fact that I will never be able to fully solve the problems that they’re dealing with, I can only offer some food support so that they don’t go hungry.
Two months ago I met an international student, *Sharla, who came to our food bank for the first time and she was panicked. She said she had to cut
the hours she was working in half because of a new immigration policy limiting how many hours international students can work. Suddenly out of nowhere, she had to survive on half her income and didn’t know how she could afford to pay the rent. In the same breath she asked me about volunteering at the food bank because now she can’t work full time.
These are the people we’re told are taking advantage of our food banks? Or causing the affordability crisis? Give me a break. It’s scapegoating, and we don’t have to buy it. I will not sit silently while the work that I have been dedicating my life to has been weaponized to push an anti-immigrant and xenophobic narrative that does nothing to serve regular people who are struggling day to day, and only serves as a distraction from a broken economic system.
In fact, Sharla’s story sounds a lot like every other person’s story who comes through our doors whether they were born in Canada or not.
Here’s the truth: the affordability crisis we’re facing in Toronto and across the country has nothing to do with what country your neighbour, classmate or coworker was born in – and believing it does, is just a distraction from the real problem.
The number one reason people come to food banks is because they can’t afford their rent. Sharla isn’t raising your rent – your landlord is, and the provincial government isn’t just letting them get away with it, they’re making it easier by removing rent controls.
The largest group of new food bank clients are workers, which means even if you’re working full time, you still can’t afford the groceries you need. Sharla doesn’t cut your hours or pay you a wage you can’t afford to live on – your employer does, and the provincial government is incentivizing them to do so by refusing to legislate equal pay for part-time, casual, contract or temporary work.
Scapegoating immigrants, international students, migrants and refugees isn’t just a harmful distraction from the real problem, it also gets us further and further away from the solutions we actually need. Newcomers like Sharla are not the reason your rent is unaffordable, that the company you work for is extracting as much profit as they can without compensating you fairly, that grocery prices are too high, that formerly stable well-paying jobs are being replaced with temp labour. This is our fault, not theirs. We have enabled this system to thrive and to push our communities to the brink.
Because instead of implementing rent control to stabilize skyrocketing rents or implementing equal pay legislation to curb the rise of low-wage, precarious work – the kind of things that would help everyone and reduce the need for food banks in the first place – we’re being sold that the solution to our problem is just making life more difficult for Sharla?
I don’t buy it, and you shouldn’t either. Sharla deserves better than this, and so do we.
Comments Off on Flood protection funding is a community victory!
Flood protection funding is a community victory!
On July 16, North York Harvest Food Bank was hit hard by a devastating flood that resulted in a power outage, infrastructure damage, and $20,000 of spoiled food.
Our community has faced terrible floods before, and we knew it wasn’t if, but when it would happen again.
Several of our partner agencies and countless community members were also reeling from the effects: displaced from their homes, property damage, loss of essential food supplies and services, and more.
After the flood, North York Harvest Food Bank, Youth Without Shelter, Room to Grow Food Bank, the Mount Dennis Community Association, and the Black Creek
Alliance joined together to discuss the effects of the flood, and how we could move collaboratively toward solutions.
Our discussions emphasized the urgent support needed from the government to alleviate the strain on our non-profits and our community.
We were joined by Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who met with community members affected by the flood, amplified our concerns and supported our call for long-term solutions in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
On August 30 an investment of $323-million from the City of Toronto and the federal government was announced to bolster the Rockcliffe-Smythe area against future flooding!
“This is the power of advocacy and community,” says Ryan Noble, Executive Director of North York Harvest Food Bank. “When we come together and fight for our community, we win. When we join our voices together and put pressure on the government to notice, it can work.
“We’re proud to have stood with our partners and neighbours who have been raising alarm bells about this issue for years, and we’re hopeful it will bring relief for our community.”
the hours she was working in half because of a new immigration policy limiting how many hours international students can work. Suddenly out of nowhere, she had to survive on half her income and didn’t know how she could afford to pay the rent. In the same breath she asked me about volunteering at the food bank because now she can’t work full time.
“This is the power of advocacy and community,” says Ryan Noble, Executive Director of North York Harvest Food Bank. “When we come together and fight for our community, we win. When we join our voices together and put pressure on the government to notice, it can work.