Am I broke enough to eat?

It's a paradox: some people don't feel that they are sufficiently disadvantaged that they have the right to use Toronto's incredible social resources. It's a gap between completely-fucked and sort-of-fucked, and that's the most important gap in the downward spiral that leads to rock-bottom. Where exactly rock-bottom is depends on your point of view. Typically things can get worse. The only actual, absolute rock-bottom is right after doing whatever it takes to commit suicide, waiting for death to come, and not wanting to abort the plan and stay alive. That is bottom. Anywhere "above" that point is a theoretical space that's subject mostly to intellectualization.

So obviously, everybody has a threshold that must be crossed before they are willing to do certain things, like rely on emergency food security resources.

The role of these services is also a matter of disagreement among the public. Probably the most popular view is that they are for people who aren't expected to bounce back into productive participation in paying for their food, accommodation, and other needs. But these programs have an open-ended criteria for use - they are there to feed whoever is willing to be fed. The most important goal of these services is, in fact, to support people in bouncing back from whatever crisis they're in, so that they don't become a "lifer."

There are several very popular "bouncing back" cases that come into play here:

• A person has to choose between food money and medication money or funding for more immediate health needs, such as surgery, dental care, etc. If they choose to spend their medication money on food, they risk the health consequences of interrupting their treatment, and the results can put them in a position where they'll need to rely on emergency services indefinitely.
• Because of the time constraints of a full-time job, or educational study, a person has to choose between purchasing unhealthy food out of convenience, jeopardizing their work or home life to obtain healthy food, going outside their budget for convenient healthy food, or getting it conveniently and for free at a soup kitchen, despite the fact that they can afford it. Once a person can work out a system that works with both their schedule and their health needs, they can be self-sufficient in this area. But the adverse health affects associated with convenient, unhealthy food can jeopardize or limit one's productivity at their work.
• Being temporarily stuck without a kitchen, for most people, means a diet of restaurant or junk food, which can lead to mental and physical health problems for most people, which can lead to a loss of employment, relationships and social equity.

The incredible number of young people who don't feel poor enough to take advantage of free emergency meal programs run the risk of disadvantaging themselves permanently.

So it's important for people to look at their health situation and make choices that will improve their lives, instead of trying to "tough it out" because they misinterpret the mandate of social programs designed to help people in all states of crisis.