We don’t have a lack of food and yet too many go hungry
Written by the London Community Foundation
The instinctual reaction to finding out that our neighbours and community members are going hungry is to donate food. We desire to give and share what we have to ensure others have at least a portion of the comforts we enjoy. In fact, during the pandemic, the London Food Bank has reported record amounts of donations and volunteer efforts, demonstrating just how much Londoners care for each other.
While donating food is both admirable and certainly needed, the bigger issue in our community at the moment is not a lack of food. It is the limitations of our distribution network and the difficulty in getting food to those that need it.
In fact, food bank usage has declined during the pandemic. While many cite the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and other stimulus programs from the federal government as a reason they no longer need the support, for many others it’s a question of access. A large portion of the food related applications to the LCF COVID-19 Response Fund were around building capacity for packaging and delivering food to the people isolated and impoverished by the pandemic, people already vulnerable and experiencing food insecurity during the best of times.
The pandemic has made many feel unsafe taking public transportation. The operating hours of many grocery and corner stores were shifted and shortened for extended periods of time, narrowing the window people had to shop. Families that relied on school-run lunch programs for meals no longer had that resource. Furthermore, community kitchens and meal programs were forced to shut down to respect physical distancing guidelines.
COVID-19 has magnified many deeply entrenched inequalities within our system including food insecurity. However, so much of the food insecurity brought about by COVID-19 has little to do with food scarcity and everything to do with how food is distributed.
According to the Middlesex London Health Unit, 1 in 7 households in the community struggled to put food on the table in 2019, and 3 out of 5 of those struggling households have paid employment. How are we defining minimum wage if it barely meets the minimum requirements for survival? We need to advocate for a living wage that allows people to do more than simply survive. We must also ensure our food systems are resilient enough to distribute food to the people who need it, when they need it most.
The pandemic has demonstrated to us the power of collaboration during times of need and that finding solutions to some of our community’s most pressing challenges is possible when we work together. As we move forward we must continue to encourage collaboration between agencies, communities and governments to strengthen our food distribution networks to ensure nobody goes hungry.