At this food bank you can get vegetables and fruit, have your blood sugar levels tested and get a referral to a specialist

Every other Tuesday, residents of the Toronto Community Housing apartment complex on Adanac Drive in Scarborough line up outside the building’s recreation room, armed with reusable shopping bags.

On the other side of the large double doors are fold-out tables piled high with groceries: fresh produce, milk, bread, canned food and even ready-made meals.

But the food bank isn’t the only thing on offer here: the apartments’ four-person health team is also there, handing out groceries alongside primary care. And their work has routinely kept residents out of the emergency room.

“There are a lot of people who just don’t have any connections. This is our way of connecting people to health care,” said Mark Dwyer, the program manager for the Canadian Mental Health Association, which runs the food bank with Toronto Community Housing (TCH).

“It’s the food that attracts people.”

The team members, a co-occurring disorders specialist, a nurse and two case managers, say they try to make care something that feels safe for residents to accept, offering everything from blood sugar testing to mental health and addictions conversations to referrals to specialists.

An innovative model

More and more people are turning to food banks due to the rising cost of living. In fact, the number of people relying on food banks has increased. the use of those services peaked across the country in 2023, according to Food Banks Canada.

But programs that connect vulnerable people with health and social services, such as a Edmonton library now employs a nurse to respond to mental health crises, overdoses and provide first aid — are still in short supply.

WATCH | In British Columbia, more working professionals are using food banks:

Food banks in British Columbia say they’re having their busiest year ever

Dan Huang-Taylor of Food Banks BC and Azim Dahya of Muslim Food Bank say they are seeing an increase in the number of people who are working but still relying on food banks. This shows a clear disparity between what some people earn and what they need to get by.

However, Mike Morgan said he hopes food banks can follow the example of Adanac Apartments. Morgan, who worked at Toronto Community Housing for 37 years, said he saw food as a way to gain people’s trust.

“People come to get food. [And] it’s a missed opportunity,’ Morgan said, by not connecting people with other services. The community services coordinator died shortly after his interview with White coat, black magic.

And building relationships has had a huge impact on some residents, including Lori Prielle, who is a regular at the food bank and has become close to the health team’s nurse, Michael Macaraig.

Prielle has arthritis and early-stage diabetes, and she checks in with Macaraig regularly to monitor her health. And two years ago, when her husband was dying of liver cancer, the nurse was one of the first people Prielle called.

“[Macaraig] “I came to the hospital, spent an hour with my husband, prayed with him,” Prielle said. “Michael has been a godsend for the past two years. He checks in on me at least once a week, and I can call him anytime.”

‘Break down that barrier’

In 2016, the team for primary care started from the social housing complex. This was an initiative of the association for mental health care, TCH and the province to make care more accessible to the residents.

Initially, the health care team organized food-focused events, such as a breakfast program, to get to know the tenants better, and then it slowly grew into the food bank we offer today.

“When we first came on the site, no one knew who we were … we had to kind of break down that barrier,” said Keturah Barclay, the team’s concurrent disorders specialist. “Some people, you know, just need someone to talk to, but they’re not quite ready to [a big] change.

“And there are others who are willing to try to prepare for a detox… [or] “Get a psychological examination.”

Barclay, who works with people struggling with both mental health and substance abuse, says it’s about meeting clients where they are at.

Signs of success

The approach appears to be working. Macaraig says the team is helping to prevent quite a few emergency department visits, particularly for mental health-related outbursts.

“They can easily come in, identify with us… and we can literally tell them what’s going on, and eventually they’ll calm down,” Macaraig said.

Even before the food bank launched, having a care team present at the facility five days a week since 2016 saw 911 calls drop by 50 per cent in that first year, according to Toronto Housing data.

However, Tim Li, coordinator of the PROOF research program, which studies household food insecurity in Canada, is not sure that food banks should play a greater role.

Li said it is very important to use food to build trust and provide health care “in a way that is not stigmatizing.” However, he also noted that charities such as food banks, which are only allowed to be used temporarily in emergency situations, are already doing too much.

“We have … placed a lot of the burden on charities, communities and in this case health care providers to pick up the pieces of a failing social safety net and a … crumbling health system,” Li adds.

Instead, he said the root causes of food insecurity, such as poverty, must be addressed head-on, along with strengthening the public health system.

Barclay says she knows the team doesn’t reach everyone.

She and her colleagues receive about 70 residents from the food bank every two weeks, but the building has about 300 single apartments.

However, the team has seen more residents register as they have slowly incorporated food into their programming. There were 37 residents registered with the health team in its first year of operation, and that number has grown to 102.

A ‘great victory’

“We hope that through our ongoing community events, such as the food bank, we can reach more people,” Barclay said.

Macaraig says he is proud of the work he and his colleagues have been able to do with the help of a healthy meal. Seeing the recreation room come alive as a community on food bank days is a “big win” for him.

“Some may be struggling, some may be struggling financially. Some may be struggling with their physical health, their mental health,” Macaraig said. “But when I see them here, it puts a smile on my face that they’re out there getting to know their neighbors and … meeting their needs.”