Food insecurity making life stressful for some Calgarians

Costs of buying grocery items have swelled by 23 per cent in Canada since 2020.

But the 22-year-old is struggling to survive in a city beset by ballooning living costs. Celebrations are a luxury he can’t afford.Lynch has a childlike face with wide eyes and a cheerful smile. But behind the warmth is a Kafkaesque struggle compounded by an affordability crisis hanging over many households in the city.

“And then when I , I get more anxious because I’m like, ‘Oh, God, I’ve just let these guys down.’ But now I know it’s too much for me.”Lynch, who receives $1,700 a month under Alberta’s Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program, said he, with the help of a social worker, has applied to more than 100 jobs, including supermarkets, restaurants, and cafes — to no avail.

Lynch’s story is just one example of how rising prices have made food more inaccessible to the city’s most vulnerable citizens. He isn’t alone in choosing cheaper grocery items at the expense of nutrition. In Calgary, 25 per cent of city residents can’t meet basic financial needs, up from 19 per cent in 2022, according to a survey by the Calgary Foundation. Thirty-six per cent of parents said they’ve skipped meals to ensure their children eat.The factors that have caused food prices to soar are complex. The most evident trigger that precipitated the rise was the disruptions to Canada’s food supply chain caused by COVID-19.

There is something about grocers that makes them prone to people’s wrath, said Jim Stanford, an economist at The Centre for Future Work. “We have to go there and look at every week.”Stanford thinks so. “You only need Grade 6 math to know if your costs and your revenue went up by the same amount and the difference between the two didn’t change,” he said. “But their profits have grown substantially.

Meanwhile, the inability to pay higher prices at grocery stores has forced many to rely on community services such as food banks. In Calgary, 700 households depend on the Calgary Food Bank every day, a 64 per cent increase from last year.But before blindly rallying for cutting production costs, some experts suggest examining the trade practices that have led food prices to be much lower than they should be.

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