Fifty people a day are using Coventry foodbanks

[dutchman]

More than 17,600 people received emergency supplies from Coventry’s food bank last year.



New figures show an average of 50 people were given help every day - a shocking rise of 40 per cent on the previous 12 months.

Rising numbers are turning to food banks because their incomes are being squeezed by soaring living costs, low pay and welfare problems, a report says.

The statistics published today by the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest foodbank network, reveal that a total of 17,663 people were supported by Coventry Foodbank during the 2013-14 financial year - a rise of 40 per cent on the previous year’s numbers of around 12,500.

Further afield the picture remains just as glum with the amount of people in the West Midlands receiving three days’ emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks up 126 per cent from 41,396 in 2012-13 to 93,461 last year.

Nationally, Trussell Trust’s foodbanks helped over 900,000 people with three days’ emergency food in last 12 months.

Gavin Kibble, operations director at Coventry Foodbank, which currently has 14 distribution centres across the city with two more soon to open, said: “We are a little mirror of the national picture as more people come to us due to delays in benefit delays and sanctions - it is an issue of the welfare state.

“There are also more people on zero-hour contracts and that sees them signing on and off from benefits and obviously there can be delays and people find themselves short.

“However there are 101 different stories as to why people come to us, but it is flying in the face of what the Government are telling us about the economy improving.

“The number one thing the Government can do is to have a less aggressive approach to sanctions - that is essential.

“Also people need to know what we mean by sanctions; they can just be from people not turning up for an interview or not applying for enough jobs.

“So what we are doing in Coventry is setting up job clubs around the city to try and help people get out of the reason they are turning to us in the first place.”

Across the UK the rate of new foodbanks opening has reduced from three a week in 2012/13 to two a week in 2013/14.

However Mr Kibble says that here in Coventry we are leading the way and our efforts encapsulate the way that communities can pull together.

“What I love about this city is the way we look after our own and we get donations from across the city - the generosity shown is great,” he said.

“Some of the biggest donations we get come from areas such as Willenhall and Hillfields and that shows that people are recognising the cause and needs of others.

“My view has always been what can we do as a community to help those in our community and that is the direction that Coventry Foodbank is taking.

“That isn’t just setting up job clubs, it is also working along the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and other organisations to see how we can get the information and support that people need.”

[rebbonk]

Scandalous!

[dutchman]

I blame the new style benefit claim forms which are totally incomprehensible even to professional advisors working in the field. These were supposed to be "simpler"and "fairer" but turned out to be anything but.

[rebbonk]

I blame IDS! If he could, he'd make it a criminal offence to be poor.

[dutchman]

In fairness to IDS the so-called "reforms" began under Labour in 2008. It was they who scrapped Incapacity Benefit and replaced it with the much more complex Employment & Support Allowance, scrapped Pension Credit and women's pensions for people under 65, imposed a "bedroom tax" on tenants living in private rented accommodation and made it much harder to claim JobSeekers Allowance.

Gordon Brown even banned jobcentres from referring clients to foodbanks, insisting that his welfare provisions were so generous there was no need for them.