Food insecurity is the condition of not having access to the quantity and quality of food that is required to meet one’s needs. The Dale is in relationship with a lot of people who experience this type of insecurity, and we’re noticing a trend: more and more people are coming to identify themselves as “food insecure”. Second Harvest, a food rescue organization of which The Dale is a part, agrees. In 2022 the number of people served free food by non-profit organizations increased by 134%. The projection is that this will increase by another 60% in 2023. 

According to Canada’s Food Price Report, the average cost of food per month for an individual is between $311 and $347. At The Dale, many of our community members are unable to work and are therefore recipients of ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program). The maximum one person can receive is $867 per month. Consider that the average cost of a bachelor apartment in Toronto is $1317. It’s not hard to do the math. Unless you have access to affordable housing (and maybe not even then), you already don’t have money to buy food. 

The line-up for food at The Dale meanders along Cowan Avenue. We set up tables from which we distribute bags of food, including a hefty meal provided to us from Second Harvest, served either hot for those who live outside or frozen for those who have the ability to heat it up. We include other items too- this week there was a bottle of water, a bag of grapes and a good handful of cookies. We admittedly don’t love having to ask people to line up, our preference being to eat meals around tables together. However, the pandemic put a cramp in our style that we are still recovering from. Our drop-in spaces all closed and have yet to re-open to us. 

There are some weeks where there is a heightened sense of urgency for food, especially near the end of the month. We try our best to assure people that everyone will receive something, even when we can feel our own anxiety bubbling up at the sight of the lengthy line. Somehow it almost always works out, for which we are incredibly grateful. 

Food insecurity can be difficult to know how to address, especially with the rise in the cost of food generally. It can be alarming to know that what accompanies the shortage of food is the alarming WASTE of food. Second Harvest notes that 11.2 billion tonnes of avoidable food waste occur in Canada each year, which includes, but is not limited to unsold food from restaurants, unharvested produce, and food left to go bad at distributors (not to mention our own refrigerators). 

The danger in sharing statistics and even about The Dale’s “line” is that the humanity of this situation can be lost. Not having access to food, a basic necessity of life, is a scary reality for a lot of very real people. And just think about all the additional benefits of food, including the way we gather around it and how it nourishes our spirits and not only our stomachs. Some of my most distinct memories are attached to the smell and taste of food. I can’t eat certain things without thinking of the people who first prepared those dishes for me. We hear similar stories at The Dale all the time.

Food has the ability to gather us together. May this crisis, which can help fuel our collective response to it, do the same.