Every year, with the assistance of volunteers, Daily Bread Food Bank conducts a survey across the GTA of people who access food banks. The surveys were completed with the cooperation of Daily Bread member agencies and regional partners: The Mississauga Food Bank, North York Harvest Food Bank, York Region Food Network and Feed the Need in Durham.

The Who’s Hungry 2012: Faces of Hunger, is an in-depth look at not just who is hungry, but why and how we can continue to fight hunger in our communities. The Hunger Snapshot contains some statistical highlights from the 2012 survey to provide you with a brief picture of poverty and hunger in the GTA.

Have no idea what the Who’s Hungry report is, or just don’t feel like reading all 28 pages? Here’s a five-minute video to sum up some of the findings of the newest report on hunger in the GTA. Helping explain it all is Daily Bread’s executive director Gail Nyberg and two of the volunteers who helped gather over 1700 surveys with food bank clients across the GTA. You’ll also hear from one of our own amazing volunteers at Daily Bread who, after falling ill, found herself coming to a food bank after having to leave the job she’d had for 20 years.

Number of client visits by electoral riding

This map shows number of client visits by Federal Electoral District, and percentage change in visits from pre-recession 2008.

The number of client visits to food banks is closely connected to the state of the economy. The chart below shows how in the City of Toronto, food bank visits and unemployment rates have shown very similar trends, increasing at similar points in time.

Click here to download a larger PDF of this chart.

Unemployment rates from Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey
Food Bank Client Visits from Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest Food Bank

Support Ontarians to pay rent AND put food on the table!
As our population and economy changes, our social safety net has to change with it. An Ontario housing benefit would be an important step in the transformation of our social safety net to meet the needs of a changing population and economy. Such a benefit, provided to all low income households with or without children, would provide an added top up to social assistance or employment income, so they could afford both rent and food. It would also provide opportunity by reducing barriers from welfare to work and not “claw back”, or reduce employment income, for those making that transition. Learn more here.