Toronto's growing food insecurity crisis

Six years ago this spring, I was challenged by low-income people in my community to live for one week on a “food bank diet” to better understand the stress experienced by so many on social assistance who have to make the choice between food and rent each month. The affect on me and my family was profound.

But while that publicity stunt helped raise awareness about hunger in our city, little has improved since. In fact, our local food banks are busier than ever.

Republican Proposal Would Restrict Free Meal Programs At Thousands Of America’s Poorest Schools

Millions of low-income American students could lose access to free school meals under a proposal circulating among House lawmakers.

The measure would reverse years of progress on free meals in U.S. schools by setting a much higher eligibility bar for schools to start making meals free to all students. Thousands of schools have expanded their meal offerings in recent years as researchers expose the extent of child hunger — and the dividends that come from curing it inside schoolhouses.

Hungry Children in Rich America 01/29/2016 04:00 pm ET | Updated 16 hours ago

Sarah is three years old. She and her six-year-old brother, Bryce, are inseparable except when it’s time for him to visit the summer food program that provides meals at a school near his Ohio home for children who otherwise would go hungry. Sarah’s too young to make the trip. One morning after Bryce had his fill of food for the day he made a detour before heading home. He walked to the trash cans and began rummaging through food others threw away. Winnie Brewer, the Food Services Supervisor in Marion City Schools, noticed the little boy and tapped him on the shoulder to ask why he was sifting through the garbage. “My little sister,” he explained. “She’s hungry.” Bringing her leftover food was the only way he knew to help.

The Shocking, Unacceptable Levels of Hunger and Homelessness in American Cities

The U.S. Conference of Mayors today released its 2015 Hunger and Homelessness Survey, which gathered information on 22 cities around the country between Sept. 1, 2014, and Aug. 31, 2015. The cities reported on are led by mayors who serve on the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness.

Suburban Poverty Has Arrived In Toronto, Food Bank Data Shows

The U.S. has seen a growing trend of suburban poverty in the years since the Great Recession, and now evidence is mounting that something similar is happening in Toronto.

Food bank use in Toronto’s suburban boroughs (Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough) has soared 45 per cent since 2008, while food bank use in the inner city (the old city of Toronto, East York and York) has fallen by 16 per cent in that time, says a new report from the Daily Bread Food Bank.

Hunger in Toronto is a tale of two cities

Toronto’s hungry are on the move.

Food bank use in the city’s inner suburbs — Scarborough, North York, York and Etobicoke — has spiked 45 per cent since the 2008 recession with a corresponding 16 per cent drop in the old city of Toronto, according to the Daily Bread Food Bank’s annual Who’s Hungry report.

Spiralling rents and Toronto’s downtown condo boom are pushing the poor — and many food banks themselves — into the suburbs where transit and social services are sparse, says the report subtitled “A tale of two cities,” being released Monday.

How Hunger Became a First World Problem

First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food?
Edited by Graham Riches and Tiina Silvasti
Palgrave MacMillan (2014)

There's something horribly wrong when Canada produces plenty of food for everyone, yet there are many people who are dependent on food banks to eat, says Graham Riches, the co-editor of a new book looking at how wealthy countries around the world address hunger.

A retired director of the school of social work at the University of British Columbia, Riches co-edited First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food? with Tiina Silvasti, a social and public policy professor from Finland.

UN Declares 2014 A Devastating Year For Millions Of Children

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations children's agency UNICEF declared 2014 a devastating year for children on Monday with as many as 15 million caught in conflicts in Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and the Palestinian territories.

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said the high number of crises meant many of them were quickly forgotten or failed to capture global headlines, such as in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Globally, UNICEF said some 230 million children were living in countries and regions affected by armed conflict.

We Could End Hunger If We Recovered Half Of The 1.3 Billion Tons Of Food Wasted Each Year

Advocates claim a new, innovative website could help salvage some of the alarming amount of global food waste.

The Global Community of Practice on Food Loss Reduction was launched last week by three United Nations agencies -- the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program -- and aims to be a global resource for individuals and organizations hoping to curb food waste, according to a press release from the U.N.

World Hunger Decreasing, But 1 In 9 People Still Undernourished

ROME, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The number of hungry people in the world has fallen sharply over the past decade but 805 million, or one in nine of the global population, still do not have enough to eat, three U.N. food and agriculture agencies said on Tuesday.

The number of chronically undernourished people dropped by more than 100 million, equivalent to a country the size of the Philippines, according to a report by the United Nations food agency (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Program (WFP).

University Students and Grads Are Using Food Banks More Than Ever

It's that time of year again, summer is almost a memory and children are heading back to school. Some students dread the first day of school, while others can't wait for new adventures, and to see the friends they've missed. For over 130,000 Ontario children back to school often comes as a welcome relief to the daily struggle of trying to find a healthy, nourishing breakfast.

The Ontario Association of Food Banks' network includes 125 direct member food banks that support over 300 breakfast clubs across the province. These clubs ensure that students have access to a balanced breakfast to help them focus on school instead of their growling bellies. Many of our member food banks also offer additional support through lunch and snack programs, backpack programs, and helping children obtain back-to-school essentials such as binders, paper, and stationary.

Texas National Guard Troops At Border Can't Afford Food

WASHINGTON -- National Guard troops deployed to the border in Texas are visiting a food bank because they can't afford food and gas ahead of their Sept. 5 payday, according to a report Friday by local station Action 4 News and a state senator.

Action 4 News reported that a Rio Grande Valley food bank had been contacted about 50 Texas National Guard troops who needed assistance. The troops are reimbursed for their meals, but pay for them upfront, stretching the finances of some troops who were called to southern Texas earlier this month to address an increase in unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally.

Canada starved aboriginal people into submission

You were never taught this version of Canadian history in school. If the guardians of the nation’s collective memory are successful, your children will also shielded from the truth.

Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, deliberately starved thousands of aboriginal people to clear a path for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and open the prairies to white settlement. His “National Dream” cost them their health, their independence and – in many cases – their lives.

25 Percent Of People In Mississippi Can't Afford Food

Twenty-five percent of Mississippi residents struggled to afford food last year -- more so than any other state -- a new Gallup report found.

For the sixth straight year, Mississippians were the most likely to have problems putting food on the table, according to the report. Those who revealed that they’ve been struggling said that there was at least one point in the past year when they didn’t have enough funds to buy the nourishment they or their families needed.

Starving College Students and the Shredded Social Contract

If you want to know why millennials are far more economically liberal than other generations, consider the news that colleges have started opening on-campus food banks to keep their students from going hungry.

Dozens of food pantries are “cropping up at colleges across the country in recent years as educators acknowledge the struggles many students face as the cost of getting a higher education continues to soar,” the Associated Press reported this weekend. Tuition alone, the article notes, “has become a growing burden, rising 27 percent at public colleges and 14 percent at private schools in the past five years, according to the College Board. Add in expenses for books, housing and other necessities of college life and some are left to choose between eating and learning.”

Food Pantries On The Rise At College Campuses As Tuitions Increase

STONY BROOK, N.Y. (AP) — Days after biology major Gillian Carll arrived at Stony Brook University last fall, she encountered a young woman on a bench outside her dormitory who said she had nothing to eat.

"I was just like, 'Oh, my gosh!' I didn't know kids could afford to go here but couldn't have mac and cheese or something like that," said the Livonia, N.Y., freshman. "It was kind of unbelievable."

The Real Hunger Games

Eva Perdue, her legs wrapped in a black- and-white-checked blanket, a bright red kerchief tied in her hair, sits on a couch in her small house near downtown Atlanta that Habitat for Humanity built. She once worked as a housekeeper at a Georgia state mental facility but quit nine years ago to care for a sick husband. Now 64 and widowed, Perdue herself is sick. “Curses of the liver and high blood pressure,” she says. She has little money to buy any food, let alone healthy food: $98 is all she has after bills are paid from her $848 monthly Social Security check plus $68 worth of food stamps.

The morning I visited Perdue, she had eaten for breakfast the breading from two corn dogs, washed down with a cup of tea. The corn dogs she gave to her 18-year-old grandson, who lives with her. Too much salt, she said. “I can eat cereal. But I have no milk.” A gallon would cost $3 or $4, which Perdue did not have. Lunch might be a small salad with some rust-tinged cabbage and carrots from a convenience store up the street. She wasn’t sure about supper or what she’d eat the next day—if she ate at all.

Addressing the crisis of poverty and hunger in the U.S.

The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is rapidly approaching, commemorating the historic Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington.

But 45 years ago, 1968, the year of his assassination, King was waging the Poor People's Campaign to eradicate poverty. He addressed the congregation at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., saying: "We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I've seen it in Latin America; I've seen it in Africa; I've seen this poverty in Asia."

As Lawmakers Target Food Stamp Funding, New Report Finds 1 in 6 in U.S. are Going Hungry

As Republicans move to cut billions of dollars in funding for food stamps, a new report finds one in six Americans live in a household that cannot afford adequate food. In "Nourishing Change: Fulfilling the Right to Food in the United States," the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University’s School of Law reports that of these 50 million people going hungry, nearly 17 million are children. Food insecurity has skyrocketed since the economic downturn, with an additional 14 million people classified as food insecure in 2011 than in 2007. The report comes as Congress is renegotiating the Farm Bill and proposing serious cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. Millions of Americans currently rely on the program to feed themselves and their families. The report’s co-author, Smita Narula of the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU’s School of Law, joins us to discuss her findings and why she is calling on the U.S. government to ensure that all Americans have access to sufficient, nutritious food.

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Source: democracynow.org
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Canada needs modern, holistic solution for the three million people who are food insecure, don’t know where next meal coming from: organizer Saul

Support for Canada’s three million food insecure people, who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, needs to change from supermarket leftovers doled out at food banks to food centres where people can come for a meal, be treated with dignity, and stay to gain new life skills, says author and community organizer Nick Saul.

Mr. Saul was director of Toronto’s The Stop community food centre from 1998 to 2012, shifting the organization away from a food bank model and into a community hub with a kitchen garden, cooking lessons, and a portal for other social services in the working-class neighborhood.