Luis worked in the corporate world for almost 35 years and did “everything right”. He describes his life as comfortable – he provided for his family and made “astute, prudent financial decisions”, paying off his house and saving money in his nest egg for retirement.
His career was demanding, and he loved it. He felt fortunate to be able to provide for his family and couldn’t have imagined what his later years would hold.
All of a sudden, it seemed that Luis was getting hit with one difficult event after another: a breakdown of his marriage, the passing of his mother, a poor health diagnosis for his father and the difficult and expensive decision to put him in a seniors home.
“A lot of events happened, one after the other. It was like I was getting over one thing, and then something else would happen.” With the stress of all these events, something was triggered in Luis.
“I got extremely ill, extremely sick to the point where I couldn’t function. I was falling apart… when you have a broken arm or a broken leg or a scar, people can see it, and the thing is, you know what? When it’s here-“ Luis points to his head. “People don’t see it.”
Although Luis started receiving much-needed medical help, he was off work on disability. He received a portion of his salary during this time, but it wasn’t enough to keep up with his existing payments and bills.
“I mean, my car payments are still the same, the insurance is still the same, electricity is still the same, that never changes, right? I ended up going through my savings. I used my nest egg and my savings just to kind of keep afloat… It’s almost like you’re running in place, like you’re going nowhere fast.”
Eventually, Luis lost his house, and that’s when he finally turned to his neighbourhood food bank for support. Stories like Luis’ unfortunately, aren’t uncommon.
There are a multitude of different reasons why someone might need to turn to a food bank, and every single one of those reasons is valid. Food Banks Mississauga leads a network of 60+ food programs across Mississauga, and through this network, they provide food for almost 10 million meals each year to over 56,000 neighbours living with food insecurity in all corners of the city.