Halifax food banks and shelters expect demand to grow this winter

HALIFAX – Cynthia Louis receives calls from a lot of people in need.

One call she answered recently was from a single mother unable to pay her heating bill, and forced to take her children to homes of family members to keep warm.

Louis works as a client services coordinator with Parker Street Food and Furniture Bank. Her focus is on the emergency fund which helps 300 to 400 low income earners every year.

“There is a lot of demand and every year it’s increasing,” said Louis. “We’re getting calls coming every day, people are calling needing help with their power bill or with oil.”

The calls are expected to increase as temperatures drop, and for staff at food banks, the connection is obvious; with the colder weather come higher heating bills, less money for groceries and more need for their services.

“If you’re paying more for fuel, for heating in your home, then you’re going to have less money available to buy groceries, so we definitely feel added pressure this time of year to provide support for those families,” said Karen Theriault, the director of development and communications at Feed Nova Scotia.

Theriault says 6400 households have asked for assistance this year. She says while financial donations are coming in, they’re down 10 percent compared to this time last year.

“We have a lot of people at this time of year that are really going to start to feel the pinch, more so than ever with the colder weather coming and so we need people to not forget to give,” she said.

Shannon Aulenback volunteers with Out of the Cold, an emergency winter shelter. He says for the homeless, the need is year round.

“It’s not something that only happens on the cold days, that’s when it comes to our mind because those of us who are properly housed think ‘oh it’s really cold today’ and we think of somebody going out in that and it’s really horrible, but it’s horrible all year round.”

Aulenback says not enough is being done in Halifax to help those in need.

“We have an issue in the city with really affordable and supportive housing, and that’s really the big issue that we see,” he said. “We’re always trying to advocate for people to be able to find those resources, there’s a lack of them.”