Food access, mobility, and transportation: a survey and key informant interviews of users of non-profit food hubs in the City of Vancouver before and during the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

Background In the City of Vancouver, Canada, non-profit food hubs such as food banks, neighbourhood houses, community centres, and soup kitchens serve communities that face food insecurity. Food that is available yet inaccessible cannot ensure urban food security. This study seeks to highlight food access challenges, especially in terms of mobility and transportation, faced by users of non-profit food hubs in the City of Vancouver before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Methods This study involved an online survey (n = 84) and semi-structured follow-up key informant interviews (n = 10) with individuals at least 19 years old who accessed food at a non-profit food hub located in the City of Vancouver more than once before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Results 88.5% of survey respondents found food obtained from non-profit food hubs to be either very or somewhat important to their household’s overall diet. In their journey to access food at non-profit food hubs in the City of Vancouver, many survey respondents face barriers such as transportation distance/time, transportation inconveniences/reliability/accessibility, transportation costs, line-ups at non-profit food hubs, and schedules of non-profit food hubs. Comments from interview participants corroborate these barriers. Conclusions Drawing from the findings, this study recommends that non-profit food hubs maintain a food delivery option and that the local transportation authority provides convenient and reliable paratransit service. Furthermore, this study recommends that the provincial government considers subsidizing transit passes for low-income households, that the provincial and/or federal governments consider bolstering existing government assistance programs, and that the federal government considers implementing a universal basic income. This study emphasizes how the current two-tier food system perpetuates stigma and harms the well-being of marginalized populations in the City of Vancouver in their journey to obtain food.

Assessing Sustainability Priorities of U.S. Food Hub Managers: Results from a National Survey

“…Furthermore, we found that the majority of food hubs surveyed intentionally selected a location that is easily accessible to low-income households. This supports previous findings in the literature [ 56 , 57 , 58 ] and suggests that our previous analysis may not have sufficiently picked up on the nuances of the relative distance to low-income households. The accessibility indicator received a higher score of 70% which is significantly higher than the 53% score in our previous study.…”

Food-related worry and food bank use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada: results from a nationally representative multi-round study

“…This included the challenges of managing the emotional stressors and vulnerabilities among staff, volunteers and clients while also overseeing complex and evolving changes to service delivery, safety protocols amid insufficient resources and supports to meet the needs of clients [ 2 ]. Other challenges to accessing and running food banks in the context of the pandemic have also been reported in Ontario [ 56 ], British Columbia [ 57 ] and by Food Banks Canada [ 59 ].…”

“…The findings from our nationally representative data are similar to those from other countries where large unmet gaps in food needs are concentrated among people who are marginalized and/or living in poverty. Inadequate social safety nets have been documented in several other high-income countries, with growing evidence that despite the proliferation and entrenchment of food banks as a primary response to unmet food need, charity-based food approaches have failed to address the growing challenges of food insecurity before or during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 30 , 31 , 33 , 57 – 59 ]. For example, Dekkinga et al describe how food banks have become an entrenched part of the Dutch food system, while additional approaches are needed to address the root causes of food insecurity, inequality, and poverty [ 50 ].…”

“…Yet there remains little empirical evidence available covering later time points, or regarding the potential associations between food worry and food bank usage in the context of the pandemic. While there has been research into how food banks and other charity-based food programs have responded to the pandemic in localized regions of Canada such as Ontario [ 56 ], Manitoba [ 2 ] and British Columbia [ 57 ], these studies have not been nation-wide. Furthermore, despite frequent media and governmental reports suggesting the widespread use of charity-based food sources in alleviating the food access concerns of Canadians during the pandemic, few national studies have described overall food bank usage in Canada in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Geospatial Determinants of Food Pantry Access in the Mid-Ohio Farmacy Program

“…3 Mid-Ohio Food Collective, Grove City, Ohio. 4 College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.…”