"Programs that are created to specifically address the needs of the poor almost always end up becoming poor programs," Giuliano says in his sparsely furnished basement office attached to a United Church. "We need a paradigm shift." He's the director of Operation Sharing, an organization that offers a range of community service programs to residents of Oxford County, two hours west of Toronto. For decades, a food bank was among those programs, but Giuliano thought it had become a poor program, and he thought he had a better idea.

While providing a food card is an improvement over the type of supports we have embraced through the traditional food bank system, it is still a band aid solution to address the shortfalls of low wages, inadequate social assistance rates, high housing costs, and other social safety net needs.

Each year, regional staff visit grocery stores to price 67 items that make up what's known as the "healthy food basket," representing what it would take to feed a family of two parents and two children with healthy food for a week.

That basket rose another three per cent, or about $6 in the last year and now stands at $196.27.

For folks trying to get by with minimum -wage jobs, social assistance or Ontario disability, it's increasingly getting out of reach.

Low-income people are most by affected these increases. That's a very large group including people on employment insurance, Ontario Works, or disability support, as well as underemployed and minimum wage workers, and students and retired people living on fixed incomes.

To learn more I sat down with Tara Kainer, who works on food security issues in the social justice office of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul.

Freedom 90 needs help with printing, mailing and all the other costs associated with carrying on a province-wide effort. You can make a donation by clicking on the Canada Helps logo.