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“It’s frightening to me that we have such a broken system right now,” said Daily Bread Food Bank CEO Neil Hetherington. But it’s what is not in their that truly scares him: that this is happening while unemployment .

But the reality is that rents have soared, and so have living costs. Three-quarters of food bank clients spend more than half their income on housing alone, and 23 per cent spend all their income on it.

The average food bank user has only $6.67 a day left to spend after paying for rent and utilities.

It was alarming when the network of 79 food banks across the city broke one million visits in a year for the first time in 2021, Hetherington said. By the end of 2023, they expect to pass three million.

A significant number of food bank clients are on fixed incomes, whether it is a disability payment or Ontario Works, and increasing those monthly amounts would make a huge difference, Hetherington said, describing the current system as “legislated poverty.”

But almost half the food bank’s clients live in households where at least one person is employed — this is the case for more than half of the 122,000 new clients in the past year. About 60 per cent have a post-secondary education, the report found.

A heartbreaking 25 per cent of those relying on the food bank are children and youth — 40,000 just in the past year. As the Star recently reported in the Kids Aren’t All Right project, food insecurity can have serious and long-lasting impacts on children from their health to their ability to learn in school.

A growing number of food bank clients are post-secondary students who are finding it impossible to make ends meet, Hetherington said, adding that he is concerned about the well-being of who face high pressure to succeed but are being inadequately prepared for the high cost of living in Canada.

Sue-Ellen Patcheson both uses the food bank weekly to supplement her ODSP payment and volunteers at the food bank reception. She helped conduct interviews for the report, speaking to recent refugees and long-time clients, including a woman who described a complex schedule of churches, drop-ins and food banks that she followed in order to get enough to eat every day.

“It’s disgusting. We need to do something,” she said. “If ODSP gets improved that’s great. But then we are leaving behind all the people who didn’t qualify.”

Patcheson maintains she’s lucky. She lives in a shared apartment in a co-op where the rents haven’t increased in years. And it still takes three other people contributing to pay for rent, internet and insurance, while still having to pay for student loans and medical bills.

René Frank happens to live in the same co-op. He lost his job during the pandemic after getting injured and cannot imagine what might have happened had he not been able to access the food bank. He was “starving at home” in part because his unemployment benefits of $733 don’t even cover his rent, which is around $900 — remarkably low by current rental market standards.

Frank, who has been training as a harm-reduction worker and hopes to soon be employed as one, said he’s still feeling the effects of malnutrition and needs to see a dietitian. And he is acutely aware of how the ��ѻ��ý rental market is pushing others into the same position he was in two years ago.

“It could be your neighbour going to the food bank. It could be you,” he said.

It’s not just regular people being crushed under the weight of unaffordable rents, it’s food banks themselves. Recently, the North York Harvest Food Bank has been struggling to find a larger warehouse space — which it needs to meet rising demand — due to high commercial rents.

“Things are beyond the pale worse. We know why they are worse, And we know what the answers are,” said Hetherington. “I’m angry. But I’m going to choose to be angry and hopeful. One is way easier than the other right now.”

Clarification — Nov. 14, 2023: Neil Hetherington is the CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank. His named was spelled incorrectly in a previous version of this story.