The results indicate that there is inadequate and unequal access across senior, youth, women and indigenous populations in West, South and East Vancouver. There are populations with high concentrations of these communities living throughout the city and being under-serviced. Current food assistance programs are clustered in the Downtown Eastside, but many of the hotspots are located elsewhere. There are disparities both within and between subpopulations. The best food assistance programs are those servicing low income populations, with 94% of high LQ DAs located within 1500 meters of a facility. The worst relationship between food programs and the location of the population is the indigenous community with less than 2% of high LQ DAs in close proximity to a program.

Scholars Hwang and Smith (2010) and Eckert and Shetty (2011), argue that food insecurity is a “product of the larger social, economic, natural and political environments”. We as humans are producing massive amounts of food that could solve food insecurity instead of becoming food waste. The disparity in urban planning with regards to the location of affordable grocery stores and where vulnerable populations reside is a reason for food insecurity (Hwang and Smith, 2010; Eckert and Shetty, 2011). Eckert and Shetty (2011) discuss the intersection of poverty and ethnic minorities, as the population most likely to face food insecurity (p.1217). With the rise in globalization and the influx of people living in urban areas, supermarkets carrying fresh produce have been replaced with convenience stores or have moved further away from the urban core, making it harder to access healthy and affordable food (Eckert and Shetty, 2011, p. 1217; Burns and Inglis, 2007, p. 878). There are systemic and economic factors that are persistently causing food to be both physically and financially inaccessible. The current food assistance programs are not sufficient at this time in Vancouver thus we need to propose more programs in under-serviced areas in order to alleviate food insecurity.

Some limitations to the research include census data and assumptions made about the populations. The aggregation of Indigenous elders and Chinese seniors was done due to limitations of the census data. It is possible to acquire ethnic data and senior data for a particular DA. However, it is difficult to determine the proportion of seniors in that area of a particular ethnic origin based on the data and therefore a clear value for each DA. It is possible that there are no seniors of that particular origin in the DA and that the ethnic values are for a different age group. As the data were obtained from the 2016 census, the values are outdated and impact the location quotients since the population values may be different.

To improve on this research, the influence of unemployment would be a good variable to examine. For a further discussion on accessibility, it would be vital to consider transportation and roads. We can also consider the temporal limitations to food programs as the hours of operations can impact access. Food assistance programs are not open 24 hours, thus food insecure populations who work during the hours of operation are persistently affected.

Conclusion

From the analysis, it is clear that there is unequal and inadequate access to food programs for populations in Vancouver. There is a need to provide more food assistance programs for youth, seniors, indigenous communities and women across Vancouver. The current areas with poor service are West and South Vancouver, making these areas first priority for new food programs. With the findings from this analysis, it can be used in support of proposing new food assistance sites to alleviate food insecurity in Vancouver.