Food banks

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Is this situation really true...or exaggerated?

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51916467

************

The BBC's Chris Vallance has been spending time at a food bank in Oxford, hearing the stories of those who come seeking help.

"It's a different story from every person but it's a similar sort of thing," she says. "Parents struggling to feed their families, teenagers that are always hungry, looking for food that isn't there. Sometimes you hear stories that they've been living on bread for a few days. They say, 'I feel a failure, a failure that I can't feed my children.'"

Every Tuesday and Friday between noon and 2pm the food bank sign is wheeled out, outside St Francis church in east Oxford, and people who cannot afford food walk in.

Sometimes they wait by the door, at other times they walk back and forth while they summon up the courage to enter. They are entitled to three visits a year but the food bank rarely turns people away. Sometimes it's the job centre or social services that gives them the necessary little blue referral form. Sometimes they are referred by a doctor who can tell they are not eating.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone," said an unemployed woman who had an MA, an unfinished PhD in a technical field and a family to feed.

*************

Is it because of Brexit? 

Any views?

Sriram

[Anchorman]

Hi everyone,

Is this situation really true...or exaggerated?

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51916467

************

The BBC's Chris Vallance has been spending time at a food bank in Oxford, hearing the stories of those who come seeking help.

"It's a different story from every person but it's a similar sort of thing," she says. "Parents struggling to feed their families, teenagers that are always hungry, looking for food that isn't there. Sometimes you hear stories that they've been living on bread for a few days. They say, 'I feel a failure, a failure that I can't feed my children.'"

Every Tuesday and Friday between noon and 2pm the food bank sign is wheeled out, outside St Francis church in east Oxford, and people who cannot afford food walk in.

Sometimes they wait by the door, at other times they walk back and forth while they summon up the courage to enter. They are entitled to three visits a year but the food bank rarely turns people away. Sometimes it's the job centre or social services that gives them the necessary little blue referral form. Sometimes they are referred by a doctor who can tell they are not eating.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone," said an unemployed woman who had an MA, an unfinished PhD in a technical field and a family to feed.

*************

Is it because of Brexit? 

Any views?

Sriram

   

No, it's not because of Brexit.
It's because of the vile austerity politics of the Tory government, and their disasterous so-called reform of the benefits system.
The report doesn't exaggerate - in fact, I know of even worse situations, for example, a wheelchair user who was refused an appeal for benefit on a technicality, and had absolutely no income coming into his house for seven weeks.
He had to depend on our local, joint church run food bank, to supply his needs - as an insulin dependant diabetic, regular, balanced nutrition was a matter of life and death.
Yes, the finances were sorted out - eventually - but for those seven weeks, food banks sustained him.
I also know working people whose income is so low that they, too, are on benefits to supplement their meagre resources.
Food banks - and clothes banks - kept their kids fed and looking
OK last year.

[Roses]

Our vicar daughter, and other clergy in her area, are trying to work out how to provide the meals for children from poor families during school holidays, now everything is shut down due to the virus.

[Steve H]

Our vicar daughter, and other clergy in her area, are trying to work out how to provide the meals for children from poor families during school holidays, now everything is shut down due to the virus.

Good for them - and nice to see you praising Christians for once!

[Roses]

Good for them - and nice to see you praising Christians for once!

Oh give it rest, Steve!

[Anchorman]

Our vicar daughter, and other clergy in her area, are trying to work out how to provide the meals for children from poor families during school holidays, now everything is shut down due to the virus.

   




C'mon! This hellish situation has existed long before that damn virus!
We've had to have a food bank for four years now, thanks to the British government's insane, inhuman policies.
If we hadn't set up a food bank, the paramedics would have been picking up many more corpses then they already DO.

[jeremyp]

   

No, it's not because of Brexit.
It's because of the vile austerity politics of the Tory government, and their disasterous so-called reform of the benefits system.
The report doesn't exaggerate - in fact, I know of even worse situations, for example, a wheelchair user who was refused an appeal for benefit on a technicality, and had absolutely no income coming into his house for seven weeks.
He had to depend on our local, joint church run food bank, to supply his needs - as an insulin dependant diabetic, regular, balanced nutrition was a matter of life and death.
Yes, the finances were sorted out - eventually - but for those seven weeks, food banks sustained him.
I also know working people whose income is so low that they, too, are on benefits to supplement their meagre resources.
Food banks - and clothes banks - kept their kids fed and looking
OK last year.

In a way Brexit is partly responsible for the current shameful state of affairs. The current government is only in power because of Brexit.

[Steve H]

Oh give it rest, Steve!

I was praising you, ffs! Bloody hell - I can't win!

[Robbie]

What Anchor said.

[jeremyp]

What Anchor said.

In fact, if you were relying on food banks before the coronavirus crisis, you are probably in trouble now. People are probably donating less.