FOOD INSECURITY DOESN'T END AFTER CHRISTMAS FOOD DRIVES

THE FIRST STEP IS TO LEND A HELPING HAND, WRITES SHANE PENNELLS

"I never thought I'd need to access a food bank." I heard that said countless times when talking to people about food insecurity. In the first four months of the pandemic, Hamilton food bank usage went up 26.4 per cent. Community services are still reporting record numbers of people accessing food banks.

It's too easy to picture people who rely on food banks as that straw man cliché of someone who doesn't work and just sponges off the system. The reality is far different: soaring housing and food costs have led some food bank clients having to choose between paying their rent or buying enough food, despite working full-time jobs. Some told me that if they have to choose, they make sure their children are fed even if it means they themselves go hungry.

During the Christmas season, we become acutely aware of the needs in our community due to numerous food drives, but food insecurity doesn't go away when awareness of it does, nor does it end just because a drive was successful. That's the difficulty of confronting large-scale social issues: there's no single, simple solution. They require a concerted, ongoing effort to even begin to find that solution.

Marin Hudson, a volunteer with Community Fridges Hamilton, said that it’s not just about combating food insecurity, it’s about combating the feelings of shame that often go with accessing social services. To that end, her group doesn’t do any tracking of clients.

“Restoring dignity and self-worth is as important as making sure they have enough to eat,” she told me. “We have to remember that everyone is a human being.”

Art Duerksen, a volunteer with a downtown outreach program, shared similar thoughts.

"Restoring dignity is key. The outreaches are as much about creating a relationship with those who come out as it is about the food. Poverty is tied to so many different aspects of a person's situation. You can't separate it into singular issues like food insecurity."

I've worked with at-risk communities for 20 years. The stories shared by Hudson and Duerksen weren't anything I hadn't heard before. Maybe that's the problem: despite all the outreaches and drives, has any real progress been made in raising people out of poverty?

Having enough food isn't going to solve food insecurity; we'll still need solutions to underlying causes such as inflation, low wages, homelessness, domestic violence and mental health concerns.

These problems are all interconnected, but so are the people grappling with them. The downtown outreach program has become a community unto itself. Some of the volunteers were originally users of the outreach's services, now using their experiences to help people as they were helped.

Perhaps the first step we can take toward combating poverty is to see those needing a helping hand as people and not as a political issue that's out of our control.

"You have to see the looks in the eyes of those who come to us to fully understand it," Duerksen told me. "They are looking for hope."

A second step could be seeing if there is anywhere you can volunteer your time. You'll find that you'll be doing as much good for yourself as for the community.