Emergency Use Only

Tressell Trust, along with Oxfam, Child Poverty Action and the Church of England have produced a study of why people went to food banks:

Emergency Use Only: 

Understanding and reducing the use of food banks in the UK

The looked at data from 900 people using food banks, and from 178 people who had used an advice service at one food bank. They conducted interviews with  40 people.

Their main conclusion is summed up in the report's title. People use food banks because they are desperate.

Summary of key findings (From the Executive Summary of the report) Full report here (120 pages).

1. People interviewed for this research turned to food banks as a last resort, when other coping strategies had failed or were overstretched. 

Tressell Trust food bank - report cover

Deciding to accept help from a food bank was often difficult, and was described by participants as being ‘unnatural’, ‘embarrassing’ and ‘shameful’.  

2. Most food bank users were facing an immediate, acute financial crisis – either a complete loss of income or a very significant reduction in their income had left them at crisis point, with little or no money to put food on the table.  

3. The acute crises people faced could be prompted by a sudden loss of earnings, or a change in family circumstances such as bereavement or homelessness.

However, for between half and two-thirds of the people included in this research, the immediate income crisis was linked to the operation of the benefits system (with problems including waiting for benefit payments, sanctions, or reduction in disability benefits) or tax credit payments.  

4. The emergency support available to people at a time of crisis was not sufficient to prevent them having to turn to a food bank. 

Many participants were not aware of the various emergency payments available in

different circumstances, and even fewer were receiving them. 

Only half (or less) of the users we spoke to knew they could seek support from the Local Welfare Assistance Scheme; very few of those potentially eligible had been awarded short-term benefit advances or hardship payments. 

============

Yesterday was the feast of Christ the King. I can only think that Christ is weeping.

It is shameful that the authorities of such a rich nation should reduce its citizens to seeking food from strangers - and so often because of the actions of the government's own welfare agency.