Healthy food, housing out of reach for vulnerable people in Perth and Huron: Report

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A single Ontario Works recipient in Huron and Perth counties can’t afford food recommended by Canada’s Food Guide if they’re paying the market rate for rent, a new report from the region’s public health unit shows.

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The health unit’s report – The Real Cost of Eating in Huron and Perth – was released this week.

Using a tool updated to reflect changes to Canada’s Food Guide in 2019, researchers found that the cost of basic groceries for a single person in the region is currently around $386 per month. That grocery bill is calculated by pricing 59 food items using the lowest available cost in six area stores, the report said.

Add that to the cost of rent – $742 per month for a bachelor apartment, a rare type of housing in the region – and a person receiving Ontario Works would be $265 in debt every month before paying for any other expenses.

“The situation is not much better for a family of four or a single parent on Ontario Works,” the report said. “After paying for rent and food, they have only $261 and $114 respectively left to cover all other expenses.”

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A family with two individuals earning minimum wage in Ontario would be left with $1,474, according to the report.

The results in the report are the first of their kind in the Stratford area for several years. Recent changes to the Food Guide, the pandemic and the amalgamation of Huron Perth public health in 2020 have prevented the research from happening more frequently, said Candace Cunningham, a registered dietitian at the health unit.

Those factors are also preventing researchers from accurately comparing this year’s figures to those from the past, Cunningham said, but the message public health officials are sending is similar.

“This report really shows what our other reports have shown,” Cunningham said. “Those living on low incomes, those that receive minimum wage, those that are receiving social assistance or disability (payments) – they aren’t receiving enough money to be able to afford the foods that are recommended by Canada’s Food Guide.

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“What is very concerning is that when people can’t afford to buy enough food, they are more likely to have poorer health.”

Despite not having comparable data in Huron and Perth counties this year, food prices in Canada are on the rise in general and will continue to escalate in the new year, according to the 13th edition of Canada’s Food Price Report.

That report, released Monday, said the total annual grocery bill for a family of four is expected to be $16,288 in 2023, $1,065 more than it was this year.

A single woman in her 40s — the average age in Canada — will pay about $3,740 for groceries next year while a single man the same age would pay $4,168, according to the report and Statistics Canada.

Food inflation is set to remain stubbornly high in the first half of 2023 before it starts to ease, said Sylvain Charlebois, lead author of the report and Dalhousie University professor of food distribution and policy.

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“When you look at the current food inflation cycle we’re in right now, we’re probably in the seventh-inning stretch,” he said in an interview. “The first part of 2023 will remain challenging … but we’re starting to see the end of this.”

Last year’s report predicted food prices would increase five to seven per cent in 2022 — the biggest jump ever predicted by the annual food price report. Food costs actually far exceeded that forecast. Grocery prices were up 11 per cent in October compared with a year before while overall food costs were up 10.1 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

“You’re always one crisis away from throwing everything out the window,” Charlebois said. “We didn’t predict the war in Ukraine, and that really affected markets.”

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Food banks – originally intended to provide temporary relief during difficult economic times in the 1980s – are not the solution, Huron Perth public health said in its report.

“Even after the economy improved, the need for charitable food assistance continued and has grown exponentially in that time.”

Instead, the local report recommends governments resume exploring a universal basic income program, increase social assistance rates and the minimum wage, increase investments in affordable housing, public transit and childcare, and pursue income protection for precarious employment.

“Research has shown time and time again that (food charity) is not going to solve food insecurity,” Cunningham said. “The biggest root cause of food insecurity is poverty.”

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-With files from the Canadian Press