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Widening the Approach to Food Insecurity: The Stop Community Food Centre

By Charles Z Levkoe

Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University

Published in Canadian Review of Social Policy, Issue 52, February 2004.

Engaging Contradictions: The Traditional Approach

Food can be a powerful metaphor for the way we organize and relate to society. Through food we can better understand our histories, our cultures and our shared future. Food connects us to ecological systems and can teach us about the world in which we live. We can also use food as a way to get in touch with our deepest desires or to examine political and social relations within society. One of the most well known examples of this type of analysis was George Ritzner’s explanation of ‘McDonaldization,’ a term he used to describe a process of social rationalization modeled on the fast food restaurant (Ritzner, 1996). However we choose to look at it, the food system, along with the world it illuminates, is currently unsustainable and unjust.

Food issues, or food insecurities, have become a critical throughout the world. Although there is more than enough food to feed the entire global population, well over 790 million people in the majority world suffer from constant hunger and malnutrition (FAO, 2003). In Canada, aproximatly10% of the population is hungry or at the risk of hunger. According to the Canadian Association of Food Banks, food bank use has more than doubled since 1989 providing food to about 778,000 Canadians in March 2003 alone (CAFB, 2003). Over forty nine per cent of these food recipients are children and estimates suggest that almost sixty per cent of households accessing food banks are families with children.

Throughout the recession in the early 1980s, food banks became Canada’s predominant response to these challenges assuming that the elevation of poverty through social welfare could end hunger. The goal was to provide food on an emergency basis to people in need. Originally expected to be only a temporary solution, they have become an institutionalized part of modern society. The idea was that food banks would eventually put themselves out of business, but instead staff and operating expenses have increased dramatically alongside the user-ship.

Although food banks do provide a necessary and valuable function in society, their approach fails to challenge the structural causes of hunger. Their maintenance through charity and by the volunteer sector has contributed to the depoliticization of hunger, relieving governments of their responsibility to address relevant issues. Furthermore, corporations use food banks to dump substandard and out-of-date products, saving them tippage fees associated with disposing of their products at landfill sights. Large supermarkets often make money through tax deductions and benefit from free public relations and advertising.

In her Book Sweet Charity, Janet Poppendieck uses food to explain the resurgence of charity in America. She describes it as a “symptom and a cause of our society’s failure to face up to and deal with the erosion of equality” (Poppendieck, 1998, p 5). According to Poppendiek, charity acts as society’s “moral safety valve.” Through donations and volunteering, personal discomfort is relieved from more long-term solutions. Food banks were not designed to address the diversity of issues that contribute to local and international food insecurity. As a result, hunger is on the rise and food is increasingly becoming a commodity available only to those who can afford it.

For sustainable solutions to be considered, food banks must begin to engage the contradictions within the traditional model of food charity and widen their approach. In doing so, they have the opportunity to serve as a model for other organizations by moving beyond the traditional model of charity and emergency response. By including both issues of social justice and environmentalism in their practice, these organizations can move a step closer to creating a sustainable food system and become a part of the growing global food justice movement.

Widening the Analysis

The Stop Community Food Centre is a Toronto-based grassroots, non-profit organization that is working to widen its approach to issues of food insecurity by combining direct service with self-help, sustainability and political advocacy. The Stop works primarily with vulnerable populations in the Davenport West region, an area that has been identified by the Community Social Planning Council as the third highest need area in the city after Regent Park and Parkdale. Some of the challenges facing the community include high unemployment, low incomes, language barriers and increasing high school dropout rates. The community also contains a diversity of knowledge and experience.

The Stop originally opened in the late 1970’s at the St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Church in downtown Toronto to work with people living on low incomes through the distribution of food. In 1985, once the food bank was well established, The Stop became involved with advocacy work in the form of assisting people with landlord-tenant disputes and welfare and unemployment problems. Currently The Stop Community Food Centre has two central interconnecting ideologies. The first is that confronting hunger must go beyond handing out food to people struggling on low incomes. The second is that food access and food security is a basic human right.

To date there has been little social analysis on the idea of the ‘human right to food.’ According to advocates, conceptualizing food as a right should be at the centre of social policymaking and democratic debate (Riches, 1999). In Canada’s Human Rights Yearbook the right to food has been defined as:

“A condition in which each person can eat food which, by prevailing medical standards, is judged adequate for the full realization of mental health. A person’s diet should also consist of food which satisfies cultural preferences. The food should be obtained in a manner which is not an affront to the dignity or self-esteem of the person. The process in which the food is made available should be stable and sustainable, thus ensuring continuing access to food of acceptable standards” (Robertson, 1990, p. 188).

In working to promote these ideas, The Stop’s philosophy is reflected by its attempt to make food the focus of a larger project of a community centre. By providing respectful emergency assistance through community development, social justice and advocacy, The Stop is attempting to create a new delivery model that takes a more holistic approach to the issues surrounding hunger in all aspects of society. In describing the choice of its name, Nick Saul, The Stop’s Executive Director, explained that, “Today, The Stop truly is a ‘community food centre,’ one that works on food access issues through a wide range of strategies – direct programming, education and advocacy” (Saul, 2001).

A variety of programs have been developed at The Stop to address issues of food insecurity. These include:

The Healthy Beginnings program established in 1989. This parental nutrition and support program, which serves approximately 55 people per week and was the first of its kind in Toronto. It brings together low-income pregnant women to discuss their experiences and provides resources, leadership development, opportunities for mutual support and group education on various food-related topics.
In 1997, a dining program was launched in response to a community needs assessment. From this, The Stop established a community kitchen and the Meals Made Easy program that runs cooking demonstrations and is a place for the community to come together. Education is central to the program, which includes a nutritional, economic and social-political analysis of food through popular education workshops.
In 1998 the Urban Agriculture/Community Gardens Program was initiated. The program grows nutritious, organic food for the food bank, develops and facilitates environmental education activities and workshops and facilitates community building, advocacy and leadership development initiatives.
The morning and afternoon drop-in and meal program provide a safe gathering space and nutritious meals. The program aims to reduce social isolation and improve quality of life through active programming and access to community information and resources. Political advocacy and community arts and information is also a central part of his program.
Other programs include a good food box distribution centre, community dining, various services (e.g. voice mail, legal aid, a settlement worker, an ID clinic) and a Homelessness Prevention program.

The Stop aims to play a leadership role in the food access sector, challenging the charitable food delivery model and serving as an example of how a wider approach can lead to social change. These ideas are reflected directly in The Stop’s Value Statement stating: “We recognize that problems of food access and security are often related to multiple issues requiring a holistic approach to service delivery.” This commitment is evident in The Stop’s involvement with the Green/Arts Barn Project in coordination with FoodShare and Evergreen. The proposal is to turn the TTC’s Wychwood Barns into a meeting place and a resource for the community which aims to: provide affordable space for the arts and environment, animate the adjacent park with programs and services as well as provide facilities for community based educational and recreational activities.

The Stop’s approach aims to bring together aspects of both social justice and environmentalism. Their work also raises many questions, which require deeper exploration. What are the long-term effects of this approach? Although there are many quantifiable benefits of The Stop’s work in Toronto, what are the larger implications in Canada and globally? Thinking through thinking about these questions and engaging contradictions presented by traditional models of emergency food delivery, The Stop can serve as a model to other community organizations. The Stop’s deeper analysis and broader approach will contribute towards the building of a more democratic, equitable and sustainable food system.

References

CAFB (Canadian Association of Food Banks). 2003. Hunger Count 2003. Toronto: CAFB.

CAFB (Canadian association of Food Banks). 1995. Annual Data. CAFB, Toronto, Canada.

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). Web site http://www.fao.org/UNFAO/e/wmain-e.htm, accessed December 1, 2003.

Poppendieck, Janet. 1998. Sweet Charity: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement. New York: Penguin.

Riches, Graham. 1999. “Advocating the Human Right to Food in Canada: Social policy and the politics of hunger, welfare, and food security,” Agriculture and Human Values. Volume 16, p 203-211.

Ritzner, George. 1996. The McDonaldization of Society. California: Pine Forge Press.

Robertson, R.E. 1990. “The Right to Food – Canada’s Broken Covenant,” in Canadian Human Rights Yearbook 1989-1990. Volume 6.

Saul, Nick. Fall 2001. “The Name Gain” in, The Stop News, Toronto: The Stop Community Food Centre.