As more Ontarians fall deeper into poverty, healthcare costs for the Province will rise and everyone will face longer wait times for the care they need. While the link between food bank use and strain on the healthcare system may not seem clear at first, a closer look shows just how connected they are.
In the Hunger Report 2025, we share that not only is poverty impacting the health and wellbeing of people and families across the province, it’s impacting the healthcare system as a whole.
The link between rising food bank use and health
Research shows that people living in poverty often have worse health outcomes than those with higher incomes. Low-income Ontarians face barriers in accessing essential medical care, like being able to afford the medications they need or transportation to medical appointments. Struggling to put nutritious food on the table can also have a negative impact on someone’s health.
For these reasons, people living on a low income are more likely to deal with chronic conditions and are more likely to need hospitalization for conditions that may otherwise be managed outside of a hospital setting.
These findings reflect what we often hear from food bank visitors: that they have to make difficult choices between paying for rent, for food, or for their medications. Sometimes, food bank visitors may not even have access to the internet or a phone to make appointments or communicate with their primary care provider. Food bank visitors have also shared that affording transportation, particularly in rural areas where public transit isn’t an option, poses a significant challenge to getting to the services they need.
How does poverty impact healthcare?
With the current crisis in Ontario’s emergency rooms, the connection between poverty and healthcare is more important than ever.
Even though healthcare is the Province’s biggest investment, in the past year alone, emergency departments were forced to temporarily or permanently close their doors more than 1,000 times because of staffing shortages. They have also faced overcrowding, record-high wait times, and shortages of the essential resources staff need to provide care.
Our own research has shown that poverty isn’t just creating adverse health outcomes for low-income people and families – it’s costing the Government of Ontario billions of dollars and means everyone has more difficulty accessing the care they need.
In our Cost of Poverty report, we estimated the healthcare savings for the Province if changes were made to move the Ontarians living in the deepest poverty to the next-lowest income bracket. In today’s dollars, we found that addressing the causes of poverty-related health concerns could reduce healthcare spending by $6.2 billion per year.
This shows that investing in poverty reduction at a provincial level can help make sure fewer people need to turn to a food bank to get by, as well as reducing healthcare spending, lessening demand for health services, and improving overcrowding and long wait times.
Source: The Hunger Report 2025
Hunger hurts the healthcare system
Food banks in our network often connect those in need to resources, like the healthcare options available to them in their area, and some even partner with local care providers to make medical services accessible, like offering pop-up clinics.
Though food banks are working hard to fill the gaps and make sure the people who turn to them can get the support they need, the root cause of these challenges is insufficient incomes for a cost of living that makes it nearly impossible for the growing number of people to afford their basic necessities.
Hunger is hurting our province – even in ways you wouldn’t expect, like long emergency room wait times. And though food banks are doing everything they can to help those in need in their communities, Ontario’s biggest challenges – like our strained healthcare system – are too big for them to tackle on their own.
If you want to make a difference you can:
- Learn more about how you can get involved to end hunger in Ontario
- Lend your voice and sign our petition to tell the provincial government it’s time to take bold action to address poverty
- Or you can support our work helping those most hurt by hunger today