New report shows fewer people used Waterloo region's food bank last year, but more needs to be done

The Food Bank of Waterloo Region recently released their Community Impact Report, where they found that less people relied on the Food Bank last year. Now at first glance, that sounds like good news, and it is, but that's not the full picture, and here's why. Well, we are seeing less people overall access food assistance. The numbers also telling us that those who are accessing food assistance are accessing it at a record. Great. We had over 671 visits to a food hamper program last year, which is an 8% increase over last year. And that's a record number for us. What do you think it means when families continue to rely, you know, having to go back every month? The cost of living continues to be high and families are forced to make impossible choices. They're making impossible choices whether to purchase food for themselves and their family or put gas in a car that's going to get them to and from a job, food on the table, or their housing costs. And those are choices that no one should have to make. But unfortunately, those living in our region continue to make those choices day after day. Right. And what do you think needs to happen next, especially us? As a community, what can we do to help alleviate the situation? We need to continue to focus on solutions that are going to bring the cost of living down. We need to focus on affordable housing. We need to continue to make sure that people are paid fair wages. And those are just a couple of examples of things that we really need to do. And, you know, if you have a small business and you're able to consider paying a living wage, there's a big discrepancy between a living wage, which just came out this week. $23.40 an hour and minimum wage. And minimum wage simply doesn't give people the needs that they have to pay their bills.