Study shows Hamilton food bank users are 'poorest of the poor'

Food bank users in Hamilton, according to a study by researchers at McMaster University, are struggling significantly more than most low-income residents.

The researchers said about one-third of all low-income households in Hamilton use a food bank at least once a year and those households are commonly ones with children. 

Martin Dooley, professor emeritus in the Department of Economics at McMaster, who co-authored the research, said food bank users are among the lowest income households in the city.

"We see that food banks clearly serve households in the low-income population that have more members to feed and less income with which to feed them," Dooley said.

"We're talking about the poorest of the poor."

The data used for the study was provided by Hamilton Food Share — service coordinator for the city's emergency food system. It was collected between 2015 and 2018 and was analyzed in McMaster University's Secure Empirical Analysis Lab (SEAL).

The data captured the introduction of the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) in 2016, which provided the basis for another report, written by McMaster graduate Melanie Yin, that found the program didn't have a significant impact on food bank use.

"If we recall that food bank users are among the lowest income households in the city, even with the Canada Child Benefit it seems reasonable that these households chose instead to spend the money on other essential categories such as rent, internet services, utilities, and transportation," Dooley said.

Meanwhile, Dooley said while it may come as no surprise that household income is the key variable associated with food bank use, the analysis found gross income in households that rely on food banks is 40 to 60 per cent lower than an average low-income family. 

Study looked at 5 types of households

Dooley said Statistics Canada data for 2016 shows that mean income among all low income is families is $22,380, while the median income is $21,077.

"If you go to the same year, for Hamilton Food Share families, the mean is only $16,000 and the median is $14,000," he said.

"We say 40 to 60 per cent because it varies a lot by the type of family."

Dooley said they looked at five types of households in the study:

• Persons living alone.
• Single parents with kids.
• Couples with kids.
• Couples without kids.
• Other.

Dooley said those categorized as poorest of the poor are concentrated in low-income areas of Hamilton — typically the central city and the near east side.

But he said there are "substantial numbers of food bank users elsewhere," adding that the food banks are located in Dundas, Ancaster, Hamilton Mountain, Stoney Creek and the west end.

"There are people out there who will assert that a lot of food bank users are not all that poor … and try to imply that some food bank users don't really need it," Dooley said.

"However, I think what our data showed definitively … is that the food bank users are not just low-income, they are the poorest of the low-income population in general. 

"Of course you can find individual households that may not be at the bottom of the income distribution for low income, but on average food bank users are the poorest of the low-income population," he added.

The analysis from both reports — the study of food bank users and the one done by Yin — will be used by Hamilton Food Share for education and advocacy.

Joanne Santucci, CEO of Hamilton Food Share, said 73 per cent of food bank users are on government income supports such as Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program. 

"The analysis shows these clients live in a financially impoverished environment and suggest government income supports are not sufficient to provide the basic needs for a household that relies on these programs," Santucci said.

"This dire outcome is attributable to the erosion of the social safety net and has led not only to an increase in poverty but also an increase in the depth of poverty experienced by families and individuals who count on that safety net to survive."

Santucci: 'Poverty is a complex issue'

According to Santucci, "Poverty is a complex issue," and the study shows "it will take a myriad of initiatives that are equitable and scalable to pull households over the poverty line."

Santucci said "exorbitant housing costs" are one of the many issues facing low-income families.

"The rising housing costs is so unbelievable that it's actually making families who are accessing food banks one step away from being homeless," Santucci told CBC News.

"The struggle to stay housed is unbelievable, especially for people with these kinds of low incomes, substantially low-incomes compared to what it costs to live."

She said another driver of poverty is that the cost of other basic needs have also gone up.

"Food is skyrocketing, utilities are skyrocketing … so there's no silver bullet, there's no one initiative now that will pull households over the poverty line," she said.

Researchers also plan to examine how COVID-19 and policy responses to the pandemic have affected food bank use, analyzing data from 2019, 2020 and 2021.