The Hidden Immorality in a Food Bank

The ideal solution is that food banks should be totally funded by government. That way the costs are spread across society and no one free rides.

Salem-News.com file photo

(CALGARY, Alberta) - I remember when the first food banks were set up in the early 1980s in response to the declining economic conditions. They were supposed to be a temporary measure. Now they’re everywhere.

There are now huge numbers of homeless people—including families with children. In Calgary last spring, an overnight census was done with over 4,000 homeless people counted. But everyone knows the number is higher, perhaps much higher. It’s no different in other large cities across North America.

I was living in Toronto in the early 1980s and had my first awareness of homelessness. There was a report in the Toronto Star newspaper about the parking lot adjacent to their building where they parked many of the cube vans used to deliver the papers, some of which had not been used for months. When one was opened it was found that a family—at least three people, at least one a child—had been living in that van all winter. Then it was news; nowadays similar situations are commonplace.

For some people, a feeling of caring and concern is sufficient that they are willing to donate some of their own money to charity in order to help relieve such suffering. But the fact that some people are willing to do this voluntarily gives the less socially aware the chance to free ride. People who don’t care much about other people can get away without donating anything. They still get the benefits that poor relief generates—in terms of improved environment and security—yet pay none of the costs. In this situation charity leads to the exploitation of the moral by the immoral.

This is no where more evident than in the food bank. People who are homeless find solutions, no matter how inadequate. This last winter in Calgary, a garbage truck lifted a dumpster and was starting to dump it when yelling was heard. A homeless man had been sleeping in it as the only relatively warm place he could find. He was rescued and escaped with minor injuries, instead of death, if he hadn’t been heard.

With food, it’s different. This is essentially a daily requirement and other than actually eating, there are no other solutions. In this case, I’m referring primarily to people who have a home but, for a variety of reasons, have little or no money for food. They must turn to food banks and soup kitchens.

But even these are limited. The Inter-Faith food bank in Calgary hands out about a week’s worth of food at each visit and allow a person/family a maximum of six visits per year. Clearly, for the other 46 weeks of the year, other solutions must be found.

In a simpler society—even just 50 years ago—there were other options. People could grow their own food in plots of land that were otherwise unused. Or they could get out of the city and hunt a wide variety of game. Neither of these is an option for people in our increasingly complex and fenced off cities. So, back to the food bank.

Food banks are private charities. They depend on food drives and people donating money. They get some donations from large food distributors, but this is usually in the form of perishable food that is nearing its due date. The large distributors like Safeway and Wal-Mart are free riding. People who are homeless stand out like sore thumbs and if they go into a store, they are watched closely. But otherwise, I suspect the large stores have no idea how many destitute people there are who can still walk into a store and look presentable but do their hunting at Safeway, Wal-Mart and other big stores.

These major food distributors are free-riding. The existence of food banks limits the number of people who take from their stores without paying. They benefit without making meaningful contributions.

The ideal solution is that food banks should be totally funded by government. That way the costs are spread across society and no one free rides. I suspect there would be too much opposition to such a political solution. In our society where private is considered good and public bad, my alternate solution is that these food businesses should support the food banks totally with a complete range of fresh food—no day old bread or perishables nearing their due date.

Free enterprise supporters might argue that this restricts the freedom of those businesses but the freedom that is being restricted is just than the freedom to free ride which is a freedom we’re all better off not having.

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Daniel Johnson was born near the midpoint of the twentieth century in Calgary, Alberta. In his teens he knew he was going to be a writer, which is why he was one of only a handful of boys in his high school typing class—a skill he knew was going to be necessary. He defines himself as a social reformer, not a left winger, the latter being an ideological label which, he says, is why he is not an ideologue. From 1975 to 1981 he was reporter, photographer, then editor of the weekly Airdrie Echo. For more than ten years after that he worked with Peter C. Newman, Canada’s top business writer (notably a series of books, The Canadian Establishment). Through this period Daniel also did some national radio and TV broadcasting. He gave up journalism in the early 1980s because he had no interest in being a hack writer for the mainstream media and became a software developer and programmer. He retired from computers last year and is now back to doing what he loves—writing and trying to make the world a better place