Neighbourhood food banks feeling the strain as the Ottawa Food Bank cuts back

Neighbourhood food banks across Ottawa are struggling to meet record-breaking demand and are making tough decisions as a result. CTV’s Dave Charbonneau reports.

Neighbourhood food banks across Ottawa are trying to make do as the Ottawa Food Bank cuts back on the supply of food it provides.

Martine Dore loves to help those less fortunate, but it’s getting harder every day.

“We’re definitely feeding around 400 to 500 people a month,” said Dore, the Westboro Region Food Bank coordinator.

Recently, the Ottawa Food Bank had to cut donations to food programs across the city by up to 50 per cent.

“So. it means a little bit less. There’s some items that were staples that we’re not necessarily able to provide each month. Or we need to find a way to fund purchasing them,” said Dore.

With less food available and a constant rise in clients, the Westboro Food Bank had to switch to serving people by appointment only.

“Before we were appointment-only, we would have large groups of people all sort of huddled together in the hallways, spilling out outside. It made it a little more tense for people,” Dore said.

These cuts come from a growing demand for food support across the city. The Ottawa Food Bank says several factors led to this difficult decision.

“We’ve been severely impacted in terms of how much we’re able to purchase and distribute to our community. And we really want to be there, in a sustainable way. So, we have to look at our long-term ways that we’re operating, how can we make sure that we can meet our commitments to the 98 programs that operate across Ottawa,” said Tricia Johnson, Ottawa Food Bank director of communications and development.

The Parkdale Food Centre is also busier than ever.

“Last month we served about 1,626 people,” said Vladimir Solorzano, Parkdale Food Centre grocery program manager.

With a change in food supplies, Solorzano says they can no longer serve as many people as they used to.

“We accepted them, even when they live outside our catchment area in the past, for different reasons, several different reasons. We don’t do that anymore. We can’t. We are serving nowadays twice as much as two years ago,” said Solorzano.

Back at the Westboro Food Bank, the cutbacks mean some items are no longer available at all.

“There were a couple that were dropped off completely. Some it’s just reduced quantities that we can order each week,” Dore said.