Food banks bracing for increased demand when supports end
Client numbers expected to climb due to impact of COVID-19
Niagara food banks say the generosity of donors is keeping them going through COVID-19 — but they’re bracing for what could be unprecedented demand this fall.
That’s when it’s anticipated some government supports like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit will end, other community supports may dry up and people operating on their savings may run out of money.
Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold chief executive officer Betty-lou Souter said the community has been generous through the pandemic but the big crunch is going to come when CERB ends.
“That’s when we’re going to see, we feel, the greatest impact,” said Souter, adding it’s the same feeling at food banks across the province with whom she speaks regularly.
“We’re all experiencing the same thing. The big concern is
what’s happening two months down the road.”
Souter said Community Care is trying to maintain its 21 programs and supports and how it can meet the needs of the people who rely on those programs and supports.
“You’ve got to be creative and you’ve got to come up with different ways,” she said.
“Every staff person has gone on a little exercise of where we were initially, when it hit and moving forward, where we’re going to be.”
Pam Sharp, director of community engagement for Project Share in Niagara Falls, said the big unknown for her agency is what things are going to look like later this year.
“We’re predicting higher numbers of clients coming through our doors in the fall,” she said. “A lot of Niagara Falls is tourism industry and, unfortunately, a lot of those jobs that are typically there, even just seasonally, aren’t this year.”
Sharp said Project Share received a lot of community support at the beginning of the pandemic and support from Feed Ontario and Food Banks Canada.
But when the CERB benefit declines or people haven’t had any income over the summer, the agency is predicting it will see new families.
“While we’ve had great support right now, the big question is how far is that going to take us?”
She said all nonprofits are in the same boat of having to cancel fundraisers, like Project Share’s Easter food drive, which typically brought in 11,250 kilograms of emergency food. This week the agency would normally be collecting donations in the Niagara Falls Canada Day parade, but that’s not happening this year either.
The agency has a bin outside its rear warehouse door on Stanley Avenue where donors can pull up and drop off food completely contact-free. It’s also added an online client registration so anyone new who needs to access services for the first time can go to projecthshare.ca and fill out the required information.
Jon Braithwaite, chief executive officer of The Hope Centre in Welland, said when some of the supports run out, his agency is going to see a real increase in people using the food banks.
He said it’s not just CERB that will have an impact. There have been a lot of pop-up food bank programs during the health crisis that aren’t really sustainable and won’t be able to continue forever. At the same time, some other food bank programs in Welland that rely on older volunteers have been put on pause while the pandemic continues.
Braithwaite said it’s expected Hope Centre’s volume will increase by at least 50 per cent by the fall.
“When you see numbers like 35,000 jobs lost in Niagara, then it becomes pretty easy to figure out that people are having to rely on other sources.”