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Cost-of-living crisis forces more Brits to foodbanks
AFP, Bradford
On an overcast morning in Bradford, northern England, a steady stream of locals arrive at a foodbank to collect produce parcels described as “a lifesaver” during the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
Bradford Central Foodbank is helping twice as many people compared to pre-pandemic, as spiralling prices for energy, food and other basics leave a growing number of Britons struggling.
“The numbers since I’ve been a volunteer have only multiplied and I can only see it getting worse,” said Karl Carroll, 33, who has relied on the parcels since 2019 and is now volunteering at the foodbank.
“I’ve barely got 40 ($50, 47 euros) by the time I’ve paid everything out, so I imagine families are struggling in more ways,” he told AFP.
Simon Jackson, 43, an unemployed former supermarket worker who is accessing long-term government sickness benefits, has been a foodbank user since February.
“It is a tougher time at the minute... the cost of living’s skyrocketed to a point of we’re having to use foodbanks a bit more,” he said.
Jackson currently gets around 900 a month in various government support payments but, like Carroll, once his bills are paid, there is little left over for food.
Rising prices are exacerbating the situation.
“Places like (this) here in Bradford are a lifesaver. They can really help balance your decisions -- sometimes between the heating and eating,” he said.
One of the clearest signs of the crisis is the surge in foodbank use.
The Trussell Trust charity says its more than 1,400 affiliated sites handed out 2.1 million parcels in the past year -- 830,000 of them to children -- in a 14 per cent increase on pre-pandemic levels.
Its central Bradford operation is hosted three days a week by a local church organisation, and can supply people with only three parcels within six months to manage demand.
They contain basics such as cereal, tinned soup, meat and fish, pasta, sauces, vegetables, biscuits, sugar, tea and coffee.
Started in 2011, it is one of around 30 free food providers now in the city of just over half a million residents, and currently helps around 1,000 people a month, said manager Josie Barlow.
Greater Bradford’s population -- the sixth biggest metropolitan area in England -- is the fifth most income-deprived and sixth most employment-deprived nationwide, according to the government’s last poverty index published in 2019.
That leaves it particularly vulnerable in the current climate.
“It’s people that are on the lowest incomes that’ll suffer the most... they have to buy the essentials but they’re the things that are really going up by a lot,” Barlow explained.
She greets arrivals with a warm smile and upbeat energy, directing them to collection tables as well as welfare, housing and other advisors.
“We want to give a food parcel, but we also really want to help people with the root causes of their food crisis,” Barlow noted.
She said they receive “a whole spread of society”, which includes working as well as unemployed people.
“You do a budget with people and you’re like: ‘yeah, you just can’t live on that, can you?’ And there’s no real way out of that,” she added.
“You can’t expect people to live like that, in crisis, just trying to survive in the long-term.”
The government announced Thursday a new 15 billion support package aimed at the most vulnerable, ahead of an expected 42 per cent jump in energy bills in October -- which follows a 54 per cent hike last month.
Three-quarters of the money is directed at government benefits recipients, with a 650 “cost-of-living payment” to most alongside 300 for pensioners and an extra 150 for those on disability support.