By Ryan Clark
No matter the time of year, the Parkdale Food Centre is always humming with activity. Staff are shuttling boxes, volunteers greet familiar faces, and neighbours pad through the door in search of what’s become increasingly scarce: enough food to get through the month.
For those who work here, the steady stream of visitors has long been a warning sign of tough economic times. So, when the Ottawa Food Bank released its 2025 Hunger Report, “Food Insecurity in a Broken System,” its findings landed with a quiet lack of surprise.
“Every time a report comes out, we already kind of know what it’s gonna say: that food insecurity is increasing,” said Alissa Campbell, director of operations at the Parkdale Food Centre. “Everyone is painting the same picture, and it becomes not surprising.”
That familiarity, Campbell says, is unsettling.
“The trouble is that it starts to feel normal; there’s no longer any shock value or surprise,” she said. “That’s troubling because it can lead to complacency or a lack of action on the things that will make a difference.”
“When we start to think of it as inevitable, there’s less drive for solutions,” she continued.
In 2024, over one-quarter of Ottawa households experienced food insecurity. Visits to food programs supported by the Ottawa Food Bank reached 588,866, more than double the number recorded in 2019.
At Parkdale, Campbell sees the effects daily.
“As things get harder for folks, the services that they’re able to access increasingly become not enough,” she said. “Everyone in Ottawa can access the food bank in their catchment area once per month, but it’s no longer enough, and increasingly people are looking for more support, whether that’s trying to come back to the food bank a second time or trying to go to a food bank outside their catchment.”
The Hunger Report calls for action at every level of government, urging policies that can reduce food insecurity rather than respond to it. It asks the federal government to “set a national target to reduce food insecurity,” the province to “protect citizens from losing benefits too soon,” and the City of Ottawa to expand eligibility and funding for its Sustainability Fund. Currently, only 20 of 71 member food bank branches receive sustainability support.
Changing demographics
The Westboro Region Food Bank, another community anchor, is also seeing growing crowds—and faces that are new to the system entirely.
Martine Dore, the food bank’s coordinator, says the challenge is balancing limited resources with rapidly growing needs.
“We try to greet every food bank neighbour who comes in like they’re an old friend and treat them with dignity, even while we’re trying to balance meeting the needs of a growing number of folks coming in,” Dore said.
According to the Hunger Report, more two-parent families are turning to food banks as rising costs outpace wages and eligibility thresholds for benefits. Seniors, who make up a 90 per cent increase since 2019, are visiting food banks nearly twice as often as they did then. They are expected to make up one in five Ottawa residents by 2030.
Newcomers are also arriving in significant numbers, often with almost no support network. Many have fled conflict in Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Every single week, we’re registering one, two or more families or individuals who have just arrived in Canada from war-torn countries,” Dore said. “People will sometimes end up at the food bank two days after getting here.”
Providing wrap-around supports
Both the Westboro and Parkdale food centres are increasingly doing far more than distributing food. They’re acting as frontline support hubs for people navigating housing crises, income gaps and the complexities of settling in a new country.
“When people come to a food bank, food insecurity is only one of the challenges they are dealing with,” Dore said. “They often come with other challenges and needs.”
Westboro partners with the Ottawa Food Bank and the Carlington Community Health Centre to bring a support worker into the food bank every Monday morning.
“We have people come in because they’re being evicted as their rent has gone up,” Dore said. “We’ve had newcomers to the city who don’t know how to navigate school systems or how to get winter clothes for their kids.”
At Parkdale, the Support Spot offers similar assistance, dedicating staff time to helping individuals and families navigate the city’s often daunting systems.
As winter approaches, public attention inevitably turns to food banks. Campbell says the Parkdale Food Centre typically receives around 60 per cent of its annual donations in the final three months of the year. But she stresses that the need is not seasonal.
“There’s a lot of attention to food banks at this time of year,” Campbell said. “The need doesn’t go up in November and December; the need is always there.”
For those hoping to help, Dore says donations of high-protein foods and culturally diverse items are especially appreciated. Feminine hygiene products are also in continual short supply.