Charity’s struggle to meet demand for essentials of cookers, carpets and coats
This article titled “Charity’s struggle to meet demand for essentials of cookers, carpets and coats” was written by Rachel Williams, for The Guardian on Sunday 2nd January 2011 23.11 UTC
In a windowless meeting room in Family Action’s east London headquarters, a stack of carefully prepared papers reveals the requirements of Britain’s neediest. Here, in applications for emergency welfare grants, are the stories of the people who fall through the gaps: the mothers, the elderly, the abused and the sick who, far from being “scroungers”, find that state help is not always enough.
Every Tuesday morning a group of volunteers – most of them retired professionals, many long-serving – meet here to scrutinise the forms and approve awards from the trust funds administered by Family Action.
At their last gathering before Christmas, the urgency is poignant. A string of applications – submitted by social workers, NHS staff, charities and other support groups – are for cookers. They are for people who have had to move fast and have had no chance to transport possessions or save for new ones: time and time again the paperwork reveals victims of domestic abuse struggling to set up a home after fleeing violent partners, worrying about the effect on their children’s health of a diet of microwave meals. Many are suffering from depression, and some physical ill health as a result of sustained abuse.
It demonstrates too the harshness even of systems designed to help. A man in his late 40s with mental health problems has recently been given the chance to move from supported living into his own flat, but he had to say yes immediately or forfeit the offer. With little advance warning, he has no funds for a cooker, washing machine or carpets.
Carpets are a particular problem, says grants board member Catherine Goode, who worked for many years for the Citizens Advice Bureau. You can’t claim for them from the social fund, the government pot that provides emergency loans for those in severe need, but if you’ve recently moved into an unfurnished flat and you have a toddler crawling on a bare concrete floor, they’re likely to be a priority. They also bring down heating bills, she points out.
Then there are the cases that expose most starkly the kind of poverty many would like to assume cannot exist in the UK: the mothers whose children have no warm clothes to wear outside in the coldest months and must apply for funds to buy shoes, jumpers and coats.
There are knowing sighs and tuts as panel members work through the pile of papers, reading out the tales of catch 22 situations they know all too well: the applicants who have been turned down for social fund grants because they have outstanding debts, the ones whose food bills are unaffordably high because they must rely on takeaways with no means to prepare hot food, and those who have no money to cover removal costs when they relocate.
The grants the board make will be delivered swiftly and efficiently – these families will have got cookers by Christmas, carpets in their living rooms and hats and gloves for their children – but all agree they have already seen applications increase. With the price of white goods rising with the VAT rise, charitable giving falling and interest rates leaving funds low, they fear Tuesday mornings will be bleaker.
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