Greater Vancouver Food Bank says it gets little support from City Hall

As the Greater Vancouver Food Bank tries to keep up with record-high demand, it’s struggling to get any support from city hall.

Cynthia Boulter, the food bank’s chief operating officer, says they’re doing their best to stretch the budget to keep up with inflation to support their over 13,000 clients, but one line item stands out — $150,000 in property taxes paid annually to the City of Vancouver.

Those taxes are for the food bank’s two locations on Terminal Avenue and Thorton Street where it has approximately 5,500 square feet of space. The food bank also serves approximately 120 community organizations through their Thorton Street location, about 70 per cent of which are based in Vancouver.

“I struggle with taking donor’s money and spending it on property tax knowing that exemptions are made for other non-profits. We could be spending that money on baby formula or the special programs that we run for children and seniors.”

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Boulter adds that the food bank has an average buying power of two-to-one, but it can be as high as six-to-one with items like produce.

It’s fairly common for municipalities in B.C. to give permissive property tax exemptions to organizations like food banks. Both the Langely and Surrey food banks receive property tax exemptions from their cities.

But Vancouver is different. In 2011, the Vancouver city council voted to end permissive property tax exemptions for charities.

Unlike other municipalities which are governed under the Community Charter, Vancouver has its own. The Vancouver Charter allows for charities and non-profit organizations to get tax exemptions based on their assessed property values from BC Assessment. The Vancouver Charter does allow for permissive property tax exemptions, but long-standing city policy dictates that tax exemptions are only applicable to property owners, despite the fact that long-term tenants like the Greater Vancouver Food Bank are required to pay property tax.

When the council ended permissive property tax exemptions in 2011, they reasoned that property tax exemptions were overwhelmingly favouring property owners instead of tenants who needed support. They also said the process was tedious because exemptions needed to be renewed every year. Council decided they could have more impact and be more flexible if they supported non-profits and charities through grants instead of tax exemptions.

There’s just one problem: under city policy, food banks, meal programs, and the provision of clothing are ineligible for grant funding.

“So that’s a double no,” Boulter said. “That’s a no, you don’t get an exemption on property tax and no you don’t get any grants.”

Meanwhile, in Burnaby, the food bank pays $130,000 a year in property tax for its 40,000-square-foot warehouse where all of its food supply is processed. Boulter says even though the food bank doesn’t get a tax exemption in Burnaby, it gets a lot more support.

“We have an amazing relationship with both our landlord in Burnaby who raises money for us every year and the mayor has been very supportive with us. He has given enormously of his time, he’s a big supporter, he’s worked with us to put in sidewalks so our clients have a nice safe way to access us from the SkyTrain.”

“We have unfortunately been unsuccessful in engaging the mayor’s office in Vancouver, which is disappointing.”

Boulter says the Food Bank is in desperate need of a new building in Vancouver, where 60 per cent of clients live, but city hall is doing little to help.

“We’ve set up appointments, they’ve been cancelled. We’ve suggested on-sites and we’ve been told a Zoom meeting is just fine. We said, we just really want you to see the operation, how we configure the space and how many people are coming through. We think that would be really powerful, but it just hasn’t gone anywhere.”

Boulter hopes that after the upcoming municipal election the City of Vancouver will step up its support of the food bank, either through a tax break or by helping them find a new building.

“There is city land right across the street from us on Terminal that is unoccupied, but we have not been given access to that. If we were given land, we could build something on it.”

“We are doing a lot behind the scenes to try and keep up with the demand out there and we’re looking for that municipal partnership rather than just being told no.”

CityNews requested to speak to Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart multiple times, however, was unavailable for comment.