A recent study done by Feed Ontario found that the Food Bank of Waterloo Region was one of the busiest in Ontario last year.
That makes it the fourth-most used food bank in the province.
“Our programs provide 220 hampers every day, which is a very overwhelming amount when you really think about it,” says Katherine MacDuff with the FBWR.
She says that number has risen about eight per cent since last year.
The Feed Ontario study says the high number of users is due to low household incomes in the area.
“Food bank use is a symptom of a much bigger issue, which is poverty,” explains Amanda King, interim executive director of Feed Ontario.
The lowest income in the region is in the Kitchener Centre riding, where the study says that one in 10 people use the food bank. There, the study found that the median household income is around $63,000 per year.
Those numbers compare to nearby ridings Kitchener South-Hespeler and Kitchener-Conestoga, as well as Cambridge and Waterloo ridings where the average household income is over $82,000.
Feed Ontario says the new study is to show that more needs to be done across the province, and MacDuff agrees.
“In Kitchener Centre, 44 per cent of households are in core housing need,” she says. “So that means that they’re spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing.”
In a statement, Kitchener Coun. Paul Singh says all options need to be explored to help economically marginalized people, including plans for affordable housing.
Between 2017 and 2018, food bank visits rose province-wide by about three per cent.
