Across Ontario, food banks are reporting an increase in the number of people who are visiting them, and Waterloo Region has not escaped the issue.
Kim Wilhelm, the interim CEO for the Waterloo Region Food Bank, was on a Hamilton radio station on Wednesday morning and said that food bank usage is up dramatically year-over-year, especially among students.
“We have had about a 200 per cent increase in those who have I specifically identified as a student access our food assistance programs in Waterloo Region,” Wilhelm said during an appearance on Good Morning Hamilton on CHML.
A spokesperson for the food bank told Global News that more than 23,000 people were helped by the Community Food Assistance Network in October, which represented a 43 per cent increase from a year earlier.
At the same time, 1,953 of those people were students, a number that has jumped 219 per cent in just a 12-month period.
“They’re not immune to some of the cost-of-living challenges,” Wilhelm said. “They also have to deal with some of the added financial burden, when we look at tuition costs and student debts overall.”
She said that it is not just the students but the incredible surge in the number of people needing food assistance that has strained the food bank’s resources.
“I don’t think that we can say that this particular demographic is impacting us any more than the overall increase in those accessing food assistance,” Wilhelm said.
“Just last week, over 10,000 hampers were distributed and that’s a record-breaking number for us.”
She also said the food bank is being pinched at both ends as people’s budgets continue to tighten.
“The reality is somebody is accessing food assistance because they don’t have that extra room in their budget to purchase food,” Wilhelm said.
“Well, people don’t have the extra room in their budget to donate food, either. And so we’re definitely seeing a decrease in nonperishable food donations.”
With the holiday season and winter around the corner, those pressures are not going to be alleviated as people add the cost of heating their homes to their monthly bills.
“At the end of the day, families want to be able to celebrate Christmas,” she said.
“The reality is no one should have to choose between eating a nice meal or celebrating Christmas.”
She said that no one should be forced to choose between car repairs or heating their homes and putting food on the table.
“Why should anyone have to make those choices?” she asked.