Food banks request financial support from Ottawa City Hall to address food insecurity

The Ottawa Food Bank showed off its new, larger warehouse in Ottawa on Friday. (Peter Szperling/CTV News Ottawa)

Food banks are calling on the City of Ottawa to provide financial support to help address food insecurity in the capital.

The Community Services Committee debated the city's new Poverty Reduction Strategy on Tuesday, outlining short-term actions for 2025-26.  The five pillars for the strategy are: food security, employment, financial security, economic development, and integrated and simplified pathways.

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The proposed short-term actions include the city holding a community-led Food Security Forum in partnership with the food sector, and establishing a city working group to coordinate efforts and enhance a food security lens in city plans and strategies.

Several speakers called on the city to do more to address food insecurity.

"We're all stretched very thin and if we don’t have direct financial support from the city now, this coming budget period, the risk is that more individuals will go without access to food and basic amenities," Eugene Williams of the Caldwell Family Centre told the committee.

"The city can't afford the financial and social consequences of not taking action on food security."

According to the city's statistics, poverty rates increased to 9.1 per cent in 2022 from 6.5 per cent in 2021.

"There is a food crisis right now in the City of Ottawa in proportions that we have never understood," Barbara Carroll of the Debra Dynes Family House and Food Bank said. "The pressure on frontline agencies to manage and to help the most vulnerable people in the City of Ottawa is becoming increasingly hard to do."

Carroll said they are supportive of the Poverty Reduction Strategy, but "that this will require bold and innovative short-term and long-term poverty reduction efforts immediately."

Debra Dynes spent $4,500 in one month to prop up its food supplies, Carroll told the committee.

The Ottawa Food Bank and its network of member agencies held a rally outside Ottawa City Hall before the committee meeting, calling for immediate action on the city's "escalating food insecurity crisis." The food bank said the rally "responds to the alarming rise in people being turned away at food banks due to overwhelming demand and the critical lack of support from the City of Ottawa and other levels of government."

According to the food bank, two per cent of its budget is covered by contributions from the City of Ottawa, calling it "insufficient to meet the escalating crisis."

Short-term priorities

Staff presented several short-term action plans as part of the Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2025-26:

• Food Security: Establish a coordinated mechanism to ensure equitable access to food.
• Food Security: Integrate a food insecurity lens into City-led strategies and plans.
• Employment: Fund skill development programs for Black and racialized youth that lead to decent work.
• Financial Security: Provide support to sustain a backbone support system for tax clinic coordination among providers, to improve service offerings and reduce pressure on income tax filing.
• Economic Development: Map available talent and opportunities in growing economic sectors offering decent work.

The 2025 budget will include a one-time funding request of $150,000 to implement the short-term solutions, according to the report.