Cortes Island’s most economically challenged residents appear to be facing another bleak winter this year. 

Filipe Figueira, Coordinator of the Cortes Island Food Bank, explained, “We’ve definitely seen a huge rise in general economic distress over the last couple of years. I think that covers two key areas. One is food insecurity,  the other one is housing insecurity, which feeds into economic insecurity as well.”  

“In terms of food insecurity, we all know  prices  have increased significantly over the last few years. I don’t think the reported cost of living index truly reflects what’s going on. I think everybody’s experiencing  higher food costs, and that has an impact obviously.”

“We are seen as a food insecure location. We don’t have a lot of big stores which sell cheaper food. We don’t have easy transport to places where food is a little cheaper. That puts us particularly at risk with food prices.” 

“I did some research recently, and  the official cumulative food price rise over 10 years is about 48.7%. I think that’s conservative. I think the real food prices that everybody experiences are much, much higher than that and certainly wages haven’t increased that much over 10 years. They’ve probably declined in real terms.” 

“You can see evidence of this in the stores. There was recently a story about the dollar store in the US and I think in Canada as well. Their sales drop off in the last half of the month because low income people buy stuff from them, but by the end of the month they’ve run out of money.” 

Cortes Currents: Have you seen an increase in the number of clients coming to the food bank?  

Filipe Figueira: “Over the summer months we always see a bit of  a decline because people get seasonal work and they’re able to grow their own food and that kind of thing.  We’re expecting  this winter the numbers will rise again. We reached a peak of around 86 people per month in January of last year. We expect to go to those numbers again because the economic situation has increased and people don’t really have the reserves to survive.”

“We’re seeing a lot more people in housing that’s precarious. A lot of people live on boats, in shelters and in trailers that don’t have proper  kitchen facilities, refrigeration, freezers, that kind of thing. So that makes it really challenging.”

Cortes Currents: You mentioned that a lot of people can’t afford to buy food on Cortes. 

Filipe Figueira: “We’re hearing a lot more about that, and not only from food bank clients, but certainly food bank clients will tell me that they have to walk on to the ferry and go to Quadra to buy essentials because they can’t really afford them here.”

“I often hear criticisms that giving food to food bank clients is undermining food security on the island. On average we’ll serve 30 or 40 clients a month most of the year. That’s a hamper of maybe $100 for a month. It’s not a huge amount of money. That would be $10,000, maybe, that we’re taking out of the economy. I know of so many people who go to Costco, for example, and once a month they’ll spend $500. I think there must be about 100 people on the island that do it regularly, so that’s $50,000 taken out of the local economy. I never hear criticisms of that.”

Cortes Currents: Do you see the situation improving? 

Filipe Figueira: I don’t see an immediate prospect of the economy improving on Cortes significantly. I welcome initiatives like the SRD Poverty Reduction Plan and I know that they are working to address the issues, but I don’t think we’re going to see results from that for at least  5 to 10 years and their initiatives are poverty reduction, not poverty amelioration. (I.e.- not dealing with people who require immediate help.) I don’t see that we’re going to have significant employment opportunities opening up on Cortes. I don’t think the housing situation is going to improve in any significant way. The percentage of income to housing costs is now going  completely off the chart and unsustainable. I don’t see that improving.

I don’t see many macro Canada-wide or even international initiatives that are likely to change the economic situation. I think we’re heading into more of a depression and downturn.”

“Luckily, we’re ramping up our ability to cope with this at the Cortes Food Bank. We’re raising funds as hard and as fast as we can. We’re reluctant to do a lot of fundraising on Cortes now, but we do know that there are some wealthier individuals on Cortes and we hope that they will  be able to help us. We’ll be doing a fundraising campaign in the winter months.” 

Cortes Currents: Any last thoughts?

Filipe Figueira: “During economically distressing times, people get less tolerant of the poorest in the community. We see that all over the world, with different groups coming to power. It’s often the case that you look at the poorest in the community as the cause of all ills and you don’t look at the causes of poverty as the causes of all ills.  Just ask people to  be more tolerant and considerate of people who are suffering economically.”

Links of Interest:

• Cortes Island Food Bank
• Articles about, or mentioning, the Cortes Island Food Bank
• Articles about, or mentioning, housing on Cortes

Top image credit: Three slices of stale brown, multigrain bread – Photo by How Can I Recycle This? via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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