to think charities should not feed children

[moogster1a]

Listening to a discussion on radio 5 about how so many children go hungry because their parents cannot afford to feed them or their lives are so chaotic they just don't think to feed them.
benefit money is enough to feed a family. If the parents lives are so cocked up that they have better priorities than feeding their own children, then the children should not be with them.
I don't understand why if the charities concerned know the children are basically starving, then why SS aren't taking the children in hand.
I understand some people have MH issues, but again, should they really be in charge of their children's basic requirements if they can't meet them?
The discussion has mentioned a few times how some parents have drug and or alcohol issues. In that case, either get straightened out and spend that money on food, or the children go into care.

Rabbits, children in reception should still get free milk and free fruit at school. I know my reception class does, and so do the younger Y1s because they are under 5.

I am trying to put this the best i can , hungry children doesnt mean parents are starving them just not feeding them enough ( i hope that made sense, ) and the children are hungry,still not right and they need all the help they can get,

Katherine, I'll check the figure, thank you for pointing that out :) . She's on JSA so by your reckoning is even worse off than she says she is! And btw, she doesn't get Child Tax benefit or Child Benefit, her DC does.

An example of when i have allocated food vouchers is when a washing machine broke. The LP with multiple children couldn't afford the repair and food. We had used her budget in SS for other essential reasons. All the family needed was a helping hand.

I won't go into too much detail but this has really riled me.

As a result of events out of our control, my DP have ended up taking 2 young family menbers in because of their family situation (which includes spending benefits on other things FYI) Social services are involved and until a decision is made over their future we are doing all we can to keep them safe, warm, fed, happy and secure. In effect they are relying on our charity.

We have crap jobs and struggle at the best of times, so yes, we are under serious pressure paying for everything.

They're not our responsibility so if I subscribe to your view I should just hand them over to social services right?

We are all responsible for the vulnerable members of our society, particularly the innocents, so I'll stick to my way of dealing with things thanks!

Graham, if you believe your friend doesn't get CTC or CB, why are you banging on to the OP about whether she gets CB?

It can take up to 3 months for benefits payments to be processed and in a parents bank account after a job loss. The system is not infallible, neither does it cover many, people's rent/mortgage payments fully. That £100 debt on a credit card to pay for Xmas that seemed like pin money when on a good salary can suddenly balloon into a real ball & chain, or an unexpected fuel bill can throw many a careful budgeter on benefits totally off course. Sudden family illness or bereavement can throw a comfortable family into real poverty overnight.

When Lehman's went down I saw many previously comfortable co-workers suddenly thrust into a humiliating, worrisome poverty stricken existence they could never have imagined just a few weeks prior. Suddenly the kids wii was being sold to meet the mortgage payments for a home they could no longer afford but couldn't sell. The job centre experience was one of degradation, benefits they'd assumed would help them in their time of need were found to be woefully inadeqaute & delayed.

I'm also old enough to have witnessed several previously comfortable mothers abandoned without notice by the husbands and thrown into awful financial situations overnight.

People often have a shocking lack of awareness as to just how quickly their personal circumstances can deteriorate through no fault of their own due to circumstances totally out of their control, such as a car crash, spousal abandonment, serious illness or job loss. Insurance protection for such events is often found to be woefully inadequate when a claim is made, despite all the glossy adverts.

For years the number of state pensioners who die of hypothermia increases due to poverty (they chose to eat!) yet still view like that of the OP's exist. Rickets rates are rising amongst children, youth unemployment and for the over 50's are at their highest levels ever. Hard times are not always the result of sheer fecklessness

Thanks Freddo I will check that. I am ashamed to admit I haven't been able to afford to put the £1 a week into the kitty for nursery snacks, so I was glad she was getting free milk. I think that milk thing may bridge that gap then too.

Might I also add that bankruptcy, or in my own case a DRO, costs money and takes time to arrange (via a CHARITY advisor OP) and my health and getting other things sorted in the meantime (priority went to PA through SS first, plus keeping up my DD's nursery as change triggers her behavioural issues, and the collection and drop off childcare for both children) has delayed being able to go ahead with that solution, also waiting for my finances to settle (getting the correct decision from the DLA important here) so I can have an accurate idea of whether to go down the DRO route or to try and sort a repayment plan (since changes in income can affect the DRO and render it useless). It's £90 to get that started, my income is about negative £100 - £200 right now considering outgoings.

Outraged, are you missing my point or are you being deliberately obtuse?

The CTC and CB are for the child first and foremost to ensure that he/she is fed and clothed. A proportion of the child's element of benefit is for their housing needs but that should not be an excessive amount. It should not be for the child to go without in order that the rent is paid.

This goes back to what was said upthread by EndangeredOtter - you feed your child first, make their needs a priority but that's fecking hard to do if a large proportion of the child's income on rent.

OP clearly has never been on benefit, whatever

To feed a family 5-8 portions of fruit and veg a day is IMPOSSIBLE on benefits. Believe me, I try. Right now, I have lost a stone in the last month, because I have had to pay for the washing machine to be repaired as there isn't a launderette IN OUR WHOLE TOWN, and my DC's were getting detention for being unable to wear their dirty PE kits.

How have I lost a stone? Well, the money for the washing machine repair had to come from somewhere. I applied for a crisis loan from DWP, and got told it wasn't something they paid out for as a washing machine isn't essential.

I DON'T pay for my internet, my Uncle does, so the DC can do their homework (Mymaths has a lot to answer for, WTF happened to teachers setting their OWN homework that could be done in an exercise book that you DIDN'T have to pay 50p for?!)

My clothes all have holes in, my DS1 has walked through the bottom of his school shoes, and the school won't let him wear his (wearable) trainers, I can't buy new ones until 17th July when ChB comes in. My DC's have ALL grown at once - who do I send in uniform that is too small? The 14yo, the 10yo, or the 8yo? I can't hand down trousers with holes in the knees, either, or girl's trousers down to a boy. And as there's a 7yr gap, I have no toddler clothes for DS3 either.

I meal plan, I don't buy crap, I home cook EVERYTHING, I don't use packets etc. Fruit and veg is criminally expensive. My DC's eat a LOT due to their activity levels (two footballers and a trampoliner), and I want them to eat healthily, but when enough cauliflower to give each DC one portion comes to nearly £3.25, without the rest of the meal, where the HELL is the money meant to come from?

I ONLY pay for : Food, Gas, Electric, Water, Rent top-up, Bus fares to school as I have a disabled DC (That I don't get DLA for) that can't walk far without being in crippling pain AND having an asthma attack, and is JUST under the distance for free transport, yet STILL I am in a negative balance at the end of each week. Their maintenance pays for their school clubs (direct from Ex's to school). Ex-P pays TV license and sky as he wants the DC to have it - over and above 'normal' maintenance.

And I'm NOT buying drink etc, haven't been 'out' since 2008 (we couldn't afford it even when Ex-P WAS living here and working), I'm not buying fucking lobster or anything, it's things like pearl barley, lentils etc, so that I can buy less meat, and the fact that two of my DC's are on restricted diets, which costs more - one is coeliac and on a GF diet, and another is severely allergic to dairy (anaphalaxis allergic to even trace amounts), soy and nuts.

He has so far this month now had to sub me £150, to help pay for clothes for the DC's. Otherwise they would have been going to school in uniform a size or two too small. DS1 in particular has grown 2 inches in 6 weeks...not something you can exactly budget for!

So YES, food banks and charities DO have a place in the UK, and it's NOT 'feckless' parents that can't put their DC's first. It's just that while the cost of food has increased by roughly 28-40% in the last two years, benefits have been frozen, which means a real-terms cut.

Benefits today have just 12% of the buying power they had in 1998. If you think it's so easy trying to feed, clothe and educate your DC's on benefits, then YOU fucking try it.

The only reason I'm not working is down to a disability that used to qualify me for severe disablement allowance, yet now the SAME disability qualifies me for NO disability benefits, and I no longer have a partner here that is employed, as the fucker left me when the going got tough...

Graham course the parent gets it. It's on behalf of the child but that's what it's meant for,food,roof,clothing. My reckoning doesn't make her worse off. Tax credits weekly for one child is £50+. child benefit is around £20 weekly for eldest dc,£13 for subsequent dc. Then jsa/IS is £60+ a week. And then there is child maintenance on top

So your friends not being accurate!

(Oh, I DO get quite a bit of their maintenance direct to me, but my Ex-P INSISTS that the DC don't stop doing their clubs just because he left). And that it is what he pays their maintenance for - so they can do things lke that, as benefits are enough to feed DC on...(Bollocks are they)

And can I just ask - WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT IN BUYING FOOD FOR YOUR DC'S IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT A HOME TO HOUSE THEM IN???!!!

Rent top-up HAS to come first. If you lose your home, you lose your DC's. Rent first, then food, then utilities, then getting them to school. You HAVE to prioritise. And there's never ENOUGH.

And on Couthy's humbling, dreadfully sad note I'll say two more things before I get off to work, moogster.

1. Do you accept any Child Benefit to which you're entitled?

1. Shame on you.

Rabbits, you shouldn't be ashamed, the nursery shouldn't be asking for an extra contribution in the first place.

I'm sorry you are going through a difficult time, and I hope you can work things out. FWIW, you don't have to pay to go bankrupt, there are just lots of people put there that try to make you believe you do. My dh went bankrupt a couple of years ago, and it was a really simple and easy process, we took free advice from CAB. It helped us a lot in terms of getting back on track, and the insolvency people have always made very reasonable descison s with regard to what we should/shouldn't have to pay.

Graham, no, I'm not missing the point at all. I just wondered why you seemed so intent on finding out whether the OP claimed CB when you acknowledge that it's for children. If its for children, what difference does it make if OPs children get it or not?

Doubt op will come back to this thread now snyway

I really don't get the fruit is too expensive argument in most cases. Of course there are families whereby simply buying food at all is close on impossible, I am talking about those who are 'struggling' but still above water IYSWIM,

This morning on TV they showed a family struggling, awful that they are struggling but they said they couldn't afford fruit and veg but when they showed in a cupboard they had bags of haribo and kit kats - in that case surely it comes down to planning better?

Asda do packs of 5 or 6 pears/apples/bananas for around £1 I don't think that works out that expensive really

The op is flawed because of this:
The children who are not being fed by their parents will not be just fed by the charity and done.
If they are being neglected SS will be involved as well.

So they will be fed whilst they are being monitored Least. One less thing for SS to worry about
One less child in the care system.
How can that be a bad thing.

So op you have the care of 2 children of parents who couldnt/wouldnt look after them and yet you still rant about 'charity'

JSA ISN'T PAID FOR THE DC - IT IS PAID FOR THE ADULT< AND IS MEANT TO COVER FOOD AND BILLS FOR THE ADULT AND RENT TOP-UPS ETC.

Thing is, you can't pay utilities and rent top-up on a FAMILY HOME out of 67 fucking quid a week. Not unless you have some sort of magic formula I don't know about. And it could be a LOT less than £67 a week they get - if they have had a previous social loan to replace, say, a cooker, or a fridge freezer, or a washing machine, they may be paying that back at £20+ a WEEK. Leaving just £47 or less to cover all that. Carpets when you move into Social Housing - you get a budgeting loan. Paid back at £20+ a week. Debts from Utilities can ALSO be removed from benefits before they are paid out - and can be removed CONCURRENTLY with Social fund loans, meaning that some parents will receive just £27-ish a week Income Support/ JSA.

Employed partner walks out, necessitating an IS/JSA claim? 6 week wait for an IS/JSA claim to be processed. Meaning crisis loans to cover ALL costs while you are waiting. Again, paid back at £20+ a week...

I have to come back to answer you Katherine. So JSA at £64, plus circa £70 CTC & CB for Lee's child, yes? That still doesn't give her enough to pay a rent shortfall of £242, £36 pm water rates, oil at nearly £400 per minimum delivery (which lasts about 3 or 4 months in winter, this I know as I used to live where she does), food, clothing, an oven repair, toiletries, cleaning products, a new kettle, electricity, bus fares, books etc etc.

And child maintainance? That's very presumptive of you. Don't make me laugh, the only thing her ex would give her is another black eye.

couthy you can get your child benefit paid weekly if you are on benefits.

Then the csa is where she needs to go Graham.

Also crisis loan and budgeting loans..... All interest free

couthy you can have all benefits paid weekly if you struggle with cashflow. I had to write a letter for income support to do it and lay down my case, but other than that, tax credits and child benefit did it over the phone.

The problem is the more poor you are the more you have to spent sometimes.

i.e. Gas and electricity - the poor families are more likely to have evil-meters.

 Food - with no big fridge and freezer you need more trips to the supermarket and more food waste and missing out on offers.

Cash flow-missing out on bargains for shoes, household items, clothes.

Washing - the laundrette costs more than if you had a w/m.

And then you sink deeper and deeper.

Maybe if families with low income were given some essential tools i.e. freezer and w/m and some cooking tools and if those meters were banned then they could organise their lives better?