'We're scared to death': low-income Nova Scotians struggling to restock food after Fiona

Inside a small white apartment building in downtown New Glasgow, N.S., residents sat in the dark for days and ate peanut butter sandwiches as the food in their fridges and freezers spoiled. 

Post-tropical storm Fiona devastated their community, and loss of electricity and telecommunications cut the residents of the area off from the rest of the province. 

"I never thought it'd be in anything like this," said Brenda Priest, one of the residents of the building on the corner of Dalhousie and Temperance streets. "I thought it was just going to be like a storm we're gonna have then it was going to be over. But here we are. We're suffering."

Priest said she stocked up on food before the storm and keeps a freezer full in case her kids or neighbours need anything. With no generator, she estimates she will be throwing out close to $400 of food.

Since her family is on a fixed income, the loss they're facing is devastating. 

"You know, even if the next-door neighbours runs out or anything we have food there for them. But now we're scared to death," Priest said. "That's going to all go bad. And how am I supposed to replace that when my husband's only on the pension?"

On Monday, the provincial government announced approximately $40-million in financial aid for Nova Scotians impacted by Fiona. This includes a one-time payment of $150 for people on income assistance and $100 for people who lost power for more than 48 hours and need to replace food.

According to a spokesperson for the provincial government, just over 24,000 eligible income assistance recipients will receive the money by Friday. But for those not on income assistance, it won't happen so fast. 

"A team is working to set up the applications approach for the $100 for spoiled food due to power outage and we hope it will be ready to launch within the next couple of days," spokesperson Marla MacInnis said in a statement to CBC. "Applications will be processed as quickly as possible. Exact timing will depend on the number of applications that are received."

But some people feel this funding is just a drop in the bucket compared to the food they lost.

"Not close," said John Stevens, a resident of Gordon B. Isnor manor, a public housing building in Halifax. "I threw a couple hundred bucks out, but that was just on the lower end of the scale ... Some other people that I'm hearing about [in the building] probably upwards of a grand, upwards of $1,000 worth of food went down the garbage chute."

Stevens said for low-income people, losing food can cause panic. 

"Everybody in this building lives on a budget, regardless of how much money they have every month," he said. 

Food bank demand soars

Feed Nova Scotia's executive director Nick Jennery said food bank demand has soared across the province since the post-tropical storm.

On Wednesday, Feed Nova Scotia sent two five-ton trucks, fully loaded with food, to Cape Breton to help 16 frontline agencies feed people in need. 

"We've sent six pallets of food boxes which are on their way now to the [Cape Breton Regional Municipality] comfort centre," Jennery told CBC's Mainstreet. "Food boxes have been sent to Antigonish Red Cross and we've also supported 11 comfort centres in [Halifax Regional Municipality] who have received some deliveries from us."

Jennery said he has never seen an event like this, but the provincial financial aid will help the organization maintain its efforts. 

"We've just done this with whatever we have on site, we're clearly depleting any inventory that we have," Jennery said. "But with the provincial money, which is very welcomed, that will allow us to do two really big things. One, to buy more food and secondly to cut checks to those organizations that can use the money to get back on their feet."

On Monday, Parker Street Food and Furniture Bank in Halifax announced around noon that they were out of food for the day and couldn't accommodate any more walk-in clients. 

Denise Daley, the organization's executive director, said they served more than 130 people that day, including many new clients, and had to turn people away once the food was gone. 

"The statistics have shown that natural disasters can have a long-term effect on food insecurity, especially for those who are already vulnerable to a regular day without a natural disaster, so the impact was even more significant," Daley said. 

She said many clients still don't have power and are concerned about what's to come. 

"We understand that pain of, 'What happens to our food? Let's hope the power comes back in a couple of hours or a day', because losing that food in this inflation is costly," Daley said. "So it's like you use some money to purchase food that you need, then it's lost. How do you recover that money? There is no means. So that anxiety definitely comes into play."

Cal Talbot, a senior in New Glasgow, lives in the same building as Brenda Priest.

"I went to the food bank and all the food I got is bad now and ... I live alone, too and it's really rough on the mind."

Talbot said aside from food, he's worried about accessing the methadone he needs to stay clean since the area's pharmacies have been closed with no power. 

"A lot of people say it'd be an ideal choice situation to break out of withdrawal and go back on the wagon. But I'm not going go that way. It's just no way. I don't want to do that."