United Nations says Canada’s Poor are Hungry

Just prior to Aboriginal Awareness Week, UN special envoy Olivier De Schutter was invited to examine hunger and food access in Canada. After an 11 day mission, De Schutter released his findings on May 16:

“What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples.”

His report also described the situation in many of Canada’s aboriginal communities as desperate: “A long history of political and economic marginalization has left many indigenous peoples with considerably lower levels of access to adequate food relative to the general population.”

In response to the report, the Federal Government represented by Minister of Citizenship Jason Kenny blasted the report’s findings and said “…the contributions we make to the UN should be used to help starving people in developing countries. Not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada.”

(image from aptn.ca)

Today, almost 1 in 10 people in Canada live in poverty. Most of them are children who go hungry every day. We see their mothers every week at Nellie’s in long line ups waiting for the food that will provide them hunger relief.

Aboriginal Awareness Week is a time to reflect on the injustices that Aboriginal people have endured since colonization and that continue to this day, including barriers to access food.

For more information on the United Nations report you can view this video from CBC.

The full report is available here.

Poverty Has A Woman’s Face

1 in 7 women in Canada live in poverty. Women earn just 76% of a man’s wage. More often than not women who are poor are faced with choosing between paying their rent or feeding their children.

Nowhere else is this more evident than at Nellie’s. In 2008, Nellie’s delivered 1,331 meals through our weekly food program –“Supper Surprise”. Last year, that number hit 1,810 – a 26 per cent increase, with an average of 71 families relying on this program for weekly food supplements.

                       

What does Poverty look like for the clients at Nellies? This is what women had to say at W.E.A.V our Women Ending Violence Support Group

• “Working everyday 2 or even 3 jobs and we don’t make enough to put food on our table every day.”
• “Sometimes I don’t eat dinner—that way my kids have enough.”
• “Poverty, struggling to survive, trying to stay alive.”
• “Homeless, living on the street, trying to find something to eat.”
• “Depressed, angry, hungry, frustrated, lonely and isolated.”
• “You can’t get money and you can’t find a job and that’s sad.”

Many factors cause women’s poverty including: lack of access to education, opportunities, childcare and fair income, sex-role stereotypes in paid work, changes in family composition such as divorce, health, violence and abuse, leaving gainful employment to caregive, and greater risk and increased poverty for women who are Aboriginal, non-white, disAbled or queer.

Women as the face of poverty results in children who are poor. Poverty among children is strongly linked to ill-health and poor academic achievement. By keeping women poor, we are also keeping children poor, making them sick, sabotaging their futures, contributing to crime, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty and violence. We need to work together to effect change social changes that will help not just some, but all women and children to succeed.

Daily Bread Toronto launches Fall Food Drive at Nellie’s

On Wednesday afternoon Nellie’s welcomed the Daily Bread Food Bank to  launch their Fall Food Drive as well as their new report on hunger “Who’s Hungry 2011: Profile of Hunger in the GTA.”  This annual report is based on information collected from food bank clients across the greater Toronto area.

According to “Who’s Hungry 2011”, the average monthly income for food bank clients is $925, with 72% of this going to cover rent and housing costs. This leaves only $5.67/day for food, clothes and other expenses. Last year the Daily Bread had over 1 million client visits, which is an increase of 130,000 from 3 years ago.

(Executive Director Gail Nyberg, and Acting Director of Research Richard Matern at Nellie’s) 

“Sixty-seven per cent of food bank clients are receiving social assistance of some kind. That means the ‘social safety net’ we supposedly have in this province has serious holes in it, and needs a transformation”, says Richard Matern, Acting Director of Research at The Daily Bread.

The Daily Bread Food Bank has set a goal of $400,000 and 400,000 pounds of food for their Fall Drive, which runs until October 14th. Financial donations can be made online here.  Donations of non-perishable food items can be dropped off at any fire hall or Loblaws, Valu-Mart, No Frills, or Real Canadian Superstore.

Nellie’s has been a proud member agency of the Daily Bread Food Bank since 2001.  Every month they provide us with 1080 meals for the women and children at our shelter.  Their support is so important to us as well as over 170 member agencies across the city.

You can find the full press release on The Daily Bread Fall Launch and Who’s Hungry 2011 Report, here.

Countdown to the Provincial Election: What YOU can do!

The 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction  is calling on all provincial political parties to make poverty reduction a key election issue this fall.

In their recently released statement “A Call to Action on Poverty in Ontario”, they say:

“As the October provincial election approaches, we call on all Ontario political parties to make the reduction and eradication of poverty a key election issue and to clearly outline their commitments and concrete plans to tackle poverty in our province.”

Many of the women and children who come to Nellie’s are not only leaving situations  of abuse, but of poverty and homelessness as well.   The Toronto Community Foundation reported in their 2010 Vital Signs report that “almost one quarter (23.4%) of children in female lone-parents families were living in poverty in 2008.”

As countless social service agencies around the city see their demand for services increase and their financial capacity to provide these services threatened by funding cuts, it is of utmost importance that the government we elect takes a serious and progressive stance on tackling poverty. 

Please check out http://25in5.ca  for more information on how you can get involved.