Nova Scotia needs to stop relying on charities to fix food insecurity: Feed N.S. head

The head of Feed Nova Scotia says the province continues to focus on outputs as opposed to outcomes when it comes to food insecurity.

“I hear about these well-intentioned programs, I see that they are warmly received because frankly any help is warmly received, but the outcome is that the number of people who are food insecure continues to go up, double digits each and every month and that is what we have to focus on and that is what we need to ask ourselves collectively, how do we reverse that,” Nick Jennery, executive director of Feed Nova Scotia told a standing committee on community services  meeting Thursday.

“Food insecurity, I believe, is a political choice, and a result of failure to act in the face of overwhelming evidence,” Jennery said.

“What if 2024 is the year we tried something different? What if we took a hard look at the way we’re doing things and humbly accept that it isn’t working? Maybe 2024 is the year we get honest, we get brave, and we take bold action. Nova Scotians deserve a life of safety, dignity, and health. Let’s be the province where that kind of life is a possibility for everyone.”

Jennery’s opening remarks laid bare the disheartening statistics about food insecurity in the province and the government’s inability to reverse those statistics.

Jennery said he appeared at a community services standing committee meeting in 2017 and delivered the message “we cannot feed our way out of this crisis, people in need do not have enough money to pay for the basics such as food.”

‘People need income’

In 2022, Jennery was in front of a legislative public accounts standing committee and said his message was that the problem is not just that the cost of food had gone up but that Nova Scotians’ incomes had not kept pace.

In 2023, appearing again before the community service committee, Jennery said he emphasized that “lining up at a charity for a basic human right is not food security.

“People need income.” 

Jennery said his organization, which supports 140 member agencies in the fight against food insecurity in the province, has been sounding the alarms of the food crisis for years and he returned Thursday to speak about another record-breaking year for food banks in the province.

“We’ve seen a 26 per cent increase in food bank usage across Nova Scotia, and some regions are being completely overwhelmed,” he said. 

“Cape Breton food banks have seen a 50-per-cent increase year-over-year in the numbers of people they are serving.”

Jennery said 77 per cent of food bank clients listed the high cost of housing and food as their reason for needing support. 

“We’ve increased the amount of food we’re distributing by 33 per cent just to meet the demand,” he said of the 82 food banks affiliated with Feed Nova Scotia.

One in six Nova Scotia households or 17.7 per cent of Nova Scotians are food insecure and Jennery said food banks across the province now face the difficult choice of either giving out less food or turning away new clients.

“We’ve said all this before, telling government that food insecurity in our province has reached new highs, that people need more income and affordable housing to live a healthy and dignified life,” Jennery said.

“We’ve been explaining that the root causes need to be addressed before there will be any improvement in the quality of life for Nova Scotians. My question today is this: what do we need to say for there to be real, measurable action taken to reduce food insecurity in our province? What numbers do you need to see that you haven’t already? How many more times will we be invited before legislative standing committees to say that charity is not the answer?”

Jobs not enough

Jennery said people registering at Nova Scotia food banks are asked questions, one of which is about their primary source of income.

“What we have noticed is that 16 per cent in 2019 identified employment as their primary source of income,” he said. “That 16 per cent is now 21 per cent. Despite having employment, it’s not enough to make ends meet.”

In 2019, seven per cent of food bank clients were newcomers to the province but that number has jumped to 20 per cent by 2023. 

“All these stats indicate a concern. It’s not difficult to do the math. If you are on income assistance and you subtract rent and utilities, maybe some basics, such as medications, you don’t really have a lot of money left over. What we do see is people’s food budget becomes a discretionary line item as opposed to something that frankly I think should be a fixed line item because we will never get healthy communities until we have people in a healthy state.”

Melissa MacKinnon, deputy minister of the Community Services Department, and Joy Knight, executive director of employment support and income assistance with the department, pointed to programs that are intended to help low-income Nova Scotians. 

“One-off payments, tax benefits, and government support programs aren’t even keeping up with inflation, and they certainly aren’t keeping people off the streets or out of the food banks,” Jennery said.

He said the minimum wage increase to $15.20 scheduled for April will not turn the tide.

Hard choices

“Until we have income that starts to get close to what is being recognized as a living wage, we’re always going to fall short of the mark,” Jennery said. “People are always going to be faced with, do I put food on the table or do I pay my rent, which is a scenario that I think we need to work collectively to eliminate.”

Jennery said thousands of Nova Scotians are being forced to live in inhumane conditions and rely on the goodwill of their community to survive. 

“Meanwhile, the capacity of these communities is not an infinite resource, and many are stretched to a breaking point.”

He said the provincial government’s Action for Health Plan includes the directive to prioritize and collaborate across government to address the social determinants of health.

“We are two years into the rollout of this plan and have yet to see any real prioritization or collaboration from any level of government in addressing inadequate income – long recognized as a primary determinate of health. We haven’t seen any indication of a measurable, time-bound plan for how we start to reverse the disturbing trend of double-digit increases in food bank use every year. We believe that a better future is possible, but charities don’t have the resources to make that future a reality, nor should they have to.”

Jennery said Nova Scotians always show up for their neighbours, in times of fires, floods and hurricanes.

“This is a province of helpers but the helpers are burnt out, and too many of them are struggling to make ends meet themselves,” Jennery said. “It’s long past time for government to shoulder the weight of addressing complex social issues, and to stop relying on charities and individuals to do the heavy lifting.”