Giving Tuesday<\/a> is a time to reflect on others who may be struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s a moment to collect yourself before the hullabaloo of the holiday season,\u201d said Filey-Wronecki. \u201cIt gives you a chance to give back, because across the country, so many of us will not be able to participate in some of these amazing fun family and friends activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
More working people using food banks<\/p>\n
The latest Food Banks Canada report revealed more food bank clients are working full or part-time hours.<\/p>\n
Filey-Wronecki said almost 20 per cent of people accessing food banks list employment as their main source of income.<\/p>\n
The report also showed 76 per cent of people who visited a food bank this year are rental tenants and 61 per cent collect social assistance.<\/p>\n
Children represent 29 per cent of food bank clients.<\/p>\n
Unaffordable rents are eating into food budgets for more Canadians, Filey-Wronecki added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing 66 per cent of income from food bank clients goes to their housing,\u201d Filey-Wronecki said. \u201cThat is a huge source of strain and it\u2019s not flexible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canadians are having to make difficult choices between rent and food at the end of every month.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than 70 per cent of food bank clients are paying market rent, so housing is really putting a huge strain on the food bank system,\u201d Filey-Wronecki added.<\/p>\n
Recommendations to government<\/p>\n
The HungerCount numbers are still trending in the wrong direction, Filey-Wronecki added and Food Banks Canada anticipates an even greater need for emergency food assistance in 2026.<\/p>\n
Filey-Wronecki said Food Banks Canada has issued recommendations to the federal government to help alleviate the need. The organization has advocated for a groceries and essentials benefit or a top-up to the GST rebate, to help low-income Canadians with rising food costs.<\/p>\n
Food Banks Canada has also called for enhancements to the Canada Disability Benefit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know a lot of people on disability benefits are relying on food banks,\u201d Filey-Wronecki noted.<\/p>\n
Long-term fixes include enhancing the supply of affordable housing and reforming the employment insurance (EI) system.<\/p>\n
Filey-Wronecki called the current EI system \u201cantiquated\u201d and insufficient in meeting the needs of gig workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not built for today\u2019s economy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Impact of Canada Post strike<\/p>\n
While the Canada Post strike was recently suspended, recent flyer delivery stoppages may have impacted the distribution of holiday fundraising appeals food banks and social service agencies rely on to solicit donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese types of disruptions just make their job a little bit harder,\u201d Filey-Wronecki noted. \u201cIt just starts the ball rolling, so they\u2019re going to have to make up that revenue over the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n
How to double your donation<\/p>\n
For the last six years, Food Banks Canada has partnered with Skip to offer matching donations to Food Banks Canada leading up to Giving Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Toronto residents can schedule doorstep pickups of non-perishable donations at givewithskip.ca<\/a>.\u00a0Skip will provide a $100 donation per pickup to the Daily Bread Food Bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to be had, shoppers are being asked to think…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-327019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}