Is it time to get rid of Food Banks?

[ssiguy]

We have all seen the headlines of Canada's Food Banks being under pressure due to the huge increase in demand which has made me think that perhaps we would be better off without them.

For those under 45, Food Banks seem as normal as snow in winter but for my generation they certainly are not. Edmonton opened Canada's first Food Bank since the Great Depression in 1981 and it made headlines across the country. I remember at the time when I was 16 thinking it wasn't big news but rather very strange. Why would banks start selling food? Yes, I really did think that because I had no concept of what a Food Bank was.

Fast forward 40 years and they have become as much of the social landscape as Timmies. What was once meant as an emergency stop-gap measure to help Albertans thru their collapsing economy of the early 1980s has become a national institution and governments are the primary beneficiary. They have become an excuse not to fully fund our social services so that all Canadians have enough to eat.

I want to be VERY clear.............I am in NO way denigrating Food Banks, their staff, commitment to people in need, their volunteers, or the people and businesses who generously support them. My issue is that perhaps they have become "too successful" and have given successive government of all types excuses not to properly fund needed programs.

The soup kitchens could keep going as they usually serve the homeless who make up a surprisingly small amount of Food Bank users. Outside of that is it time for Food Banks Association to bite the bullet and make a firm commitment to close all their operations down coast to coast within {ie 18 to 24 months} thus putting their collective knees on government throats forcing them to finally provide proper minimum living standards for all Canadians as opposed to telling them to just go beg for charity?

[Truenorth00]

Unless those alternatives are in place, the gap will see people starving. Making people starve because of ideology. That's something.

[ConundrumNL]

Sadly, I don't think it would spur governments into action. At best you'd see some token programs, probably out-sourced to some for-profit entity, that would never meet needs.

It's interesting that the first post depression Food Bank opened in 81. From my 21st century viewpoint we seemed to had a better handle on these issues from late 40s-70s.

[Beedok]

They had to open in the first place because the government didn’t care. Closing them will just lead to people going hungry.

[WhipperSnapper]

I appreciate the end goal. The approach is fucking insanity. It's like increasing population growth during a housing crisis.

Lets leave the food banks alone and stop disparaging people who use them (in a Canadianesque," I'm so sorry you have to use a food bank. It must make you feel less valued")

Baby steps towards that end goal.

[MolsonExport]

As soon as we get rid of hunger, we should get rid of food banks.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

As soon as we get rid of hunger, we should get rid of food banks.

Well, we have enough restaurants and supermarkets, so that's not the problem. We also have enough agriculture and food supply. It's quite complicated, but it all comes down to exaggerated income inequality, perhaps fueled by globalism and the flaws of our economic system. Poverty is the residual end product of capitalism on steroids (but we all know that).

[MolsonExport]

Give more food to the rich people. Trickle down burgernomics. The invisible hand of the Big Mac.
Or should I say, Galen Weston? offshore profit stashing, fights against a higher minimum wage, questionable pay-premium decisions, and bread price-fixing.

Loblaw Delivers Adjusted EBITDA growth of 10.3% in the Third Quarter

[Acajack]

Get rid of the food banks and implement UBI.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Get rid of the food banks and implement UBI.

While a lot of it is, not all homelessness and hunger is economic, so you'll always need some version of food banks. Maybe just not to the level we have today. Maybe food banks could be replaced with food stamps. And even that is practically debatable.

UBI broadly is impossible. CERB should have shown you why. We sprinkled helicopter money and sent inflation to the moon, making it harder for the poor. The only way to pull off UBI without that kinda of inflation is substantial tax increases and stringent policies that end the financialization of housing. Never going to happen. Canadians are just fine with people being homelessness, if ending it means that they won't have opportunities to be landlords and have a passive income stream.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

While a lot of it is, not all homelessness and hunger is economic, so you'll always need some version of food banks. Maybe just not to the level we have today. Maybe food banks could be replaced with food stamps. And even that is practically debatable.

UBI broadly is impossible. CERB should have shown you why. We sprinkled helicopter money and sent inflation to the moon, making it harder for the poor. The only way to pull off UBI without that kinda of inflation is substantial tax increases and stringent policies that end the financialization of housing. Never going to happen. Canadians are just fine with people being homelessness, if ending it means that they won't have opportunities to be landlords and have a passive income stream.

Landlords take houses of the sale market and push up prices for homes, but it is hard to see how converting owner-occupied units to rental units is creating homelessness. It might actually be relieving it because the of the massive shortage of rental construction in Canada.

[lio45]

We could borrow from San Francisco’s playbook:

Step 1 — Make stealing <$500 of food from Loblaws not a felony anymore;

Step 2 — Abolish all food banks;

Step 3 — Bask in the glow of knowing you have fixed hunger.

[acottawa]

As a means of feeding people food banks are extremely inefficient and labour intensive, some sort of a food stamp or voucher system would be way better. But on the other hand, they divert enormous amounts of food from landfill.

[lio45]

True, but if they’re staffed by volunteering retirees who would otherwise be sitting at home (and now feel useful), who cares if it’s inefficient and labor-intensive?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Give more food to the rich people. Trickle down burgernomics.

Huh. The idea being that the artificially-fattened rich will be more nutritious when society hits the “eat the rich” point? I guess it could work

[esquire]

Food banks are charities so I don't know how you can "get rid" of them given that people are making donations of their own volition.

But that said, I agree with the OP's point that food banks are a lousy substitute for proper government policies to make sure that people have sufficient resources to put food on the table.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Get rid of the food banks and implement UBI.

Won’t fix the need for food banks; all those people who’ll blow the entirety of their UBI on crack or booze will still need to eat during the month.

And no, sadly, I’m not exaggerating at all. (Just realized it’s my first serious post in this thread )

[lio45]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Landlords take houses of the sale market and push up prices for homes, but it is hard to see how converting owner-occupied units to rental units is creating homelessness. It might actually be relieving it because the of the massive shortage of rental construction in Canada.

Truenorth is correct on that one: a booming real estate market means you’d have to be crazy to continue to operate SRO buildings (it’s not an easy customer base), when you can instead destroy them and speculate on rising land values and/or build shiny new glass-and-steel bitcoins to sell to BCMLs on the locations of your former prewar SRO buildings.

(I’ll let you connect the dots on how this creates homelessness.)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

We could borrow from San Francisco’s playbook:

Step 1 — Make stealing <$500 of food from Loblaws not a felony anymore;

I think it's actually 950 USD!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

While a lot of it is, not all homelessness and hunger is economic, so you'll always need some version of food banks. Maybe just not to the level we have today. Maybe food banks could be replaced with food stamps. And even that is practically debatable.

UBI broadly is impossible. CERB should have shown you why. We sprinkled helicopter money and sent inflation to the moon, making it harder for the poor. The only way to pull off UBI without that kinda of inflation is substantial tax increases and stringent policies that end the financialization of housing. Never going to happen. Canadians are just fine with people being homelessness, if ending it means that they won't have opportunities to be landlords and have a passive income stream.

Part of this is also the old adage that people can get used to most anything as normal.

We recently had a family visit us from abroad and one of the things their teenagers remarked was how many homeless people there were (in downtown Ottawa). They are from a country that's not as rich as Canada BTW, and which I know for a fact has a far less visible homelessness problem in their cities. (Though they do have other serious problems we don't have.)