With the municipal election on October 26, we get to vote for City/Regional Councillors, School Board Trustees, and the Mayor, who represent us in municipal matters for the next four years.
Here are our recommendations for candidates’ election promises and platforms to reduce food insecurity and hunger in Mississauga.
1. Expand access to city-owned space for community food programs.
Community food programs play a critical role in ensuring residents have access to food. However, growing demand puts significant strain on these programs. 56% of food programs in the FBM network, including FBM itself, operate from leased, rented, or donated space.
According to United Way Greater Toronto, 70% of social service agencies lease their space, with occupancy costs having increased by up to 57% over the past decade. These conditions make it difficult for food programs to secure stable, affordable space and plan for long-term service delivery. In the past 4 years, the 4 food programs that ceased operations in Mississauga did so only because they lost their leased location or the lease price increased beyond their capacity to pay.
Recommendations:
- Offer longer-term, affordable space agreements. Simplify permit processes and extend hours of operation
- Reduce City fees associated with the use of City-owned space
- Provide priority access to City-owned spaces for food security organizations
- Leverage community benefits agreements to secure additional space
2. Improve access to support services for low-income households
As those experiencing poverty try to match their meagre incomes to meet their basic needs, the City and Region can provide support by ensuring access to vital services at low or no cost. By increasing no- or low-cost access to childcare, transit, and recreation for low-income households, you will enable households to free up resources that can be redirected to buy food.
While these services are, in some cases, currently provided at no cost to seniors, only 12% of that demographic group lives in poverty, vs . For that reason, we recommend transitioning to a means-tested delivery of taxpayer-funded services to ensure the most vulnerable households in Mississauga and Peel have access.
Recommendations:
- Make public transit more affordable for low-income residents by enhancing the Affordable Transit Program to provide free travel for eligible participants and investing to expand awareness of this program.
- Provide access to no- or low-cost recreation programs and community fitness for low-income residents.
- Ensure low-income residents are prioritized in access to other services.
3. Increase and preserve affordable housing, and strengthen protections for renters
Lack of access to affordable, adequate, and stable housing is a primary reason people turn to food banks for support. At Food Banks Mississauga, we support Peel ACORN’s advocacy for renters.
Recommendations:
- Strengthen the Mississauga Apartment Rental Compliance (MARC) program and create a citywide landlord licensing or registration system
- Adopt a strong anti-renoviction bylaw, modelled on Hamilton’s approach
- Tax vacant housing
- Enforce property standards more aggressively
- Increase the supply of deeply affordable/non-market housing
4. Advance Peel’s Poverty Reduction Strategy
Ensure clear targets, timelines, measurable indicators, and dedicated funding to address food insecurity and its root causes. The 2018-2028 Peel Poverty Reduction Strategy had no numeric targets or indicators developed to determine the success of the strategy.
Recommendations:
- Before the next Poverty Reduction Strategy is launched, ensure it includes a reporting framework of indicators that demonstrate reductions in poverty, as was promised in the 2018-2028 Poverty Reduction Strategy.
- Orient monitoring and reporting around progress on key measures versus the current practice of reporting on initiatives/activities.
- Reduce duplication and maximize return on investment by partnering with community-run programs that already provide similar services to low-income residents, such as tax clinics or gift cards through the Food Security Pilot.
- Commit to advocacy by staff and elected officials to increase provincial social assistance rates, as income insufficiency is the main driver of poverty in Peel.
