Social Policy Trends: Food Bank Use and Homelessness

Problems such as homelessness, food insecurity, and ill health are rarely experienced in isolation from one another. Understanding how they are related is helpful for designing appropriate public policy responses.

In a recent report, the Social Policy research team at the School of Public Policy worked closely with the Calgary Food Bank and the Calgary Homeless Foundation to “link” two large data sets describing how individuals and families use the food bank and whether they end up having to stay in one of the city’s emergency homeless shelters. The aim of that report was to investigate how food bank use changes in the years prior to an individual or family entering a homeless shelter for the first time.

In addition to that key result, the report found 59 per cent of families and 31 per cent of single people using homeless shelters also rely on the Calgary Food Bank between shelter stays. Prior to entering a homeless shelter for the first time, over 60 per cent of individuals and families made use of the food bank. All of these calculations make clear these two problems associated with poverty – the threat of homelessness and the experience with food insecurity – are closely linked. When we observe individuals and families making use of a food bank, we should be aware we are observing people who are also at heightened risk of homelessness. We believe food bank use is an underappreciated predictor of future homelessness.