It appears more seniors in Windsor-Essex are relying on food banks.

The Ontario Association of Food Banks has released its annual report and it shows a half-million people accessed services between April 2017 and March 2018.

That is only up slightly from the previous year, but the number of seniors needing hunger relief in Ontario jumped 10 per cent during that time.

In Windsor-Essex, that number is a lot higher.

“We have already seen a 16 per cent increase in the number of seniors that we're serving,” says June Muir, the CEO of the Unemployed Help Centre. “So we're higher than the province.

Downtown Mission Executive Director Run Dunn says money just isn’t going as far as it used to.

“It's difficult these days to stay ahead of it and so more people are turning to the Mission and places like ours,” says Dunn.

Windsor’s Downtown Mission distributes 80,000 pounds of canned goods per month, but Dunn says demand has outpaced donations.

The food banks report says the vast majority of senior food bank users are living in rental or social housing.

The association attributed the increase in part to soaring housing costs that have pushed more seniors below the poverty line.