As demand for food assistance soars, a local organization in Montreal has had no choice but to start turning hungry people away “every single day.”
The Depot Community Food Centre, a pillar in the city’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood, is “not in any way able to meet the needs of the community,” according to its executive director.
“In January, for the first time in 40 years, we had to put in place a waiting list,” Tasha Lackman said in an interview.
Up to 150 people add their names to the list each month. At the Depot, there is another grim milestone — so many more families are asking for assistance that its numbers have tripled in recent years.
While the team rolls up its sleeves to help those in need, Lackman argues more needs at higher levels to be done to fix the affordability crisis and struggling Canadians.
“When I started here just under three years ago we were doing 700 families a month and now we’re doing 1,750,” Lackman said.
New data from Food Banks Canada paints a bleak picture across the country. Its annual survey of food bank use in Canada recorded more than two million visits in March 2024 — nearly double the monthly visits five years ago in March 2019, and six per cent above last year’s record-breaking figure.
The study, released Monday, says rapid inflation, housing costs and insufficient social supports are driving new levels of poverty and food insecurity.
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Food Banks Quebec’s Hunger Count 2024 found 2.9 million requests for food assistance were made in a single month in March, up 13 per cent from the previous year.
Since 2021, that number has jumped by nearly one million.
“We’re concerned and we believe it will only continue to increase,” said Véronique Beaulieu-Fowler, Food Banks Quebec’s director of philanthropy.
‘People from all walks of life’ need help
At the Depot, they’ve been helping Ukrainian refugees who fled the war and people who are stuck in cycles of poverty.
But Lackman notes Montrealers who never had to access their services before and even adults with jobs “but who still can’t make ends meet” are also lining up for help.
“People from all walks of life are using our services,” she said.
The Depot isn’t the only local organization forced to turn people away. Moisson Montréal reports one out of three food banks in the city do the same.
“Every year, the needs increase and although we distributed more than 19 million kilos of food last year, it is not enough,” Moisson Montréal’s executive director Chantal Vézina said.
Boxes wait to be filled with provisions at The Daily Bread Food Bank warehouse in Toronto on Wednesday, March 18, 2020.
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Moisson Montréal is stepping in with financial help for food banks across the city.
On Monday, it announced it will be awarding 40 grants of up to $40,000 for agencies looking to bolster their infrastructure. The goal is to help food banks add kitchens and more trucks to their fleets and purchase new equipment.
Lackman applauded the move. But while the extra money will help, she says, the root problem is income.
She is advocating for what she calls a federal groceries and essentials benefit, noting it’s “not acceptable” that food banks are beating their own records “every year.”
“Based on the GST structure that will offer up to $150 per person per month, which becomes a reliable income,” she said.
While advocates acknowledge there are government programs already in place, they insist that much more is needed. Food Banks Quebec’s executive director Martin Munger said the province helped by doling out $30 million to food banks in its last budget and another $10 million estimated for 2025-26, “but it will not be enough.”
— with files from The Canadian Press