The hungry are getting hungrier in Thunder Bay.
In 2008, the Salvation Army’s nightly soup van service provided food for 16,332 people. Last year that number rose by more than 50 per cent, to 25,000. It underscores a growing problem of poverty and homelessness that nationwide affects one in nine people, said Mervyn Halvorsen, executive director of the organization’s community and residential services.
Poverty doesn’t have to be a life sentence, he added, echoing the title of a report released this year by the Salvation Army that indicates half of Canadians believe the recent recession has increased the number of homeless people in the country and ranks poverty as the nation’s third most pressing social problem.
At the local level the Salvation Army is trying to help people escape the downward cycle, but it isn’t easy, Halvorsen said.
"What we’re doing is the folks who come for assistance (we) help them with budgeting, in programming to help them with budgeting, to help them with looking for jobs, how to write a resume and to try to help them try to improve their living conditions as well," Halvorsen said.
"We also want to try to stabilize the individual or the family. With the men here at the Booth Centre, that is what we are focusing on, to try to strengthen them, to try to support them and to enable them to go back out into the community and also serve the community."
And the numbers just continue to grow, he added, noting that while all 17 short-term beds have not been used of late, he’s expecting a full house in June and beyond.
In March 2009 Salvation Army officials saw numbers at their food bank skyrocket 750 per cent over the same time frame in 2008. The number grew again this past March, Halvorsen said Wednesday during an open house held at their Cumberland Street residence.
It’s an uphill battle, but one he thinks can be won.
"Our hope and desire is that we can eliminate it. That is our hope. Together with all the groups in the city and across the country, we do make a major difference and lives are changed because of the help of the community," Halvorsen said.
Mayor Lynn Peterson said she shudders to think what would happen if an organization like the Salvation Army wasn’t around to feed and clothe and minister to those most at risk in society.
"It’s an extraordinary array of responses to the community," Peterson said, after planting an apple tree in the centre’s Field of Greens, a year-old project that allows the Salvation Army and its clients to grow fresh fruit and vegetables for use in both the kitchen and soup van.
"Through that process we assist people who have issues with homelessness, poverty, mental health and addiction and family abuse … Can you imagine what your community would be like without this?"
In addition to the men’s residence, which supplied 10,870 bed nights and 23,205 meals in 2009, the Salvation Army provides emergency disaster services, hosts an anger management and anti-bullying program, a school breakfast program, community dinners and a new community kitchen, life skills groups and the aforementioned food bank.
