Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that if there were food banks ten years ago, they would have been just as popular?

74 replies

seventyfive · 16/04/2014 18:46

Food banks are in the news today as more and more people are using them. Whilst I think is is awful not to be able to afford food, when I think back 10-15 years ago when I was in my early 20's with small children, I remember finding it really hard to get by, and so did lots of my friends.

Food banks are great, and I wish we had them back then as I remember getting by on just a few £ per week, and we didn't have Aldi/lidl back then either.

It does make me question the repeated 'more people are using food banks' story, as they people now have more opportunity to use food banks now when I think there have always been people who are really struggling?

OP posts:
lessonsintightropes · 16/04/2014 19:51

YABU. You need to demonstrate severe need to use one, and you're only allowed to use them for a few times. Use has shot up since crisis loans were discontinued.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 16/04/2014 19:55

Crikey. And Aldi's been around since 1989. Somehow I imagine there weren't many of them back then, though.

WyrdByrd · 16/04/2014 19:56

Yabu.

I work at a Sure Start centre with a food bank. When I started 4.5 years ago we saw someone for food once in the blue moon - now we get at least half a dozen people a week, and that's just during the 20 odd hours a week I'm in, I'm sure there are more.

TheWordFactory · 16/04/2014 19:58

There was a country wide recession during the 80s/90s but there were pockets of huge poverty.

Liverpool when the docks closed. Yorkshire and Wales when the pits closed.

Some communities were devestated at a time when London was swimming in cash.

Goblinchild · 16/04/2014 19:58

I pay most of my bills by DD, we have a 3 bed semi with GCH and cooker.
Ten years ago, gas was £40 pcm, now it's £130.
Petrol was 78p a litre, now it's around £1.31

My council tax has increased by £7 in a decade, which seems much more reasonable.

gordyslovesheep · 16/04/2014 19:59

and we had Safeway and Netto - plus more local shops

YouTheCat · 16/04/2014 19:59

YABU for assuming you can just rock up to a food bank. You have to be referred and you can only use it a limited number of times.

Family credit was longer than 12 years ago. And food was a hell of a lot cheaper.

Back in your box.

LadyMaryLikesCake · 16/04/2014 20:02

I was nurse training 10 years ago and the health visitors used to give families in need vouchers for food which they would collect from the homeless day centre. This food had been donated to them by schools/charities etc. In a way, it was a food bank, it wasn't as well publicised as they are today.

Goblinchild · 16/04/2014 20:04

We are managing OK, but I'd hate to have a child with a disability or an illness that meant I was struggling to keep the house warm, and having to decide what to go without in order to do so.
People have been declared fit for work who patently aren't, and their benefits have been removed accordingly. It's an appalling judgement on the priorities of those in charge, and their complete lack of either empathy or logic.

fatlazymummy · 16/04/2014 20:12

Well, there's always been a need for them, but probably not for so many people. I can remember giving my friend what food I could afford, if it wasn't for me and a couple of other friends she and her children would have gone hungry for most of the week. That was due to her husband keeping her short of money.As far as we know there were no local food banks.
On the other hand , when the same friend signed on the social a few Months later she came out of the office with over £200 in her purse. Obviously that would never happen today.
So yes, you are being unreasonable,though of course some people needed them then. Poverty isn't a new thing.

LaurieFairyCake · 16/04/2014 20:13

More like 30 years ago. At that time I was in poverty and we were often hungry.

10 years ago country was booming.

Original poster
seventyfive · 16/04/2014 20:39

Well, I must have just had a lot of very unfortunate friends..!

OP posts:
littlemisssarcastic · 16/04/2014 21:34

I do believe that if food banks are more in demand now, it is because the govt are aware the food banks are fulfilling a need that previously might have been fulfilled through a crisis loan, and therefore inadvertently letting the govt relinquish their responsibility to people living in poverty.

It's a vicious circle but if people have no food, what can be done.
The govt imo sits back and let's the food banks pick up the govt's responsibility.
The flipside is that for as long as food banks/churches/charities pick up where the govt has dropped their responsibility, the govt won't take responsibility and will continue to sanction peoples benefits, but I cannot think of an alternative atm that doesn't involve people going hungry.

ilovesooty · 16/04/2014 21:38

Popular?

What an unfortunate choice of words.

thecatfromjapan · 16/04/2014 21:55

No. As the first response to your post said: they have increased as the numbers in poverty have increased.

I'm sorry you struggled so much in your twenties.

thecatfromjapan · 16/04/2014 22:00

It's utterly disgraceful. I live in London: I see extraordinary and ordinary displays of wealth every single day. It is appalling that people are having to use food banks. It is disgusting. Sad

caroldecker · 16/04/2014 22:16

when people are referred, what evidence do they need to show that they need to use a foodbank?

expatinscotland · 16/04/2014 22:20

Sanctions, delays, and staggering cost of utilities are behind the rise, but so many people think others just rock up and get food for free.

Darkesteyes · 17/04/2014 00:09

manicinsomniac Wed 16-Apr-14 19:14:49

I think popular is the wrong word ...

other than that, I don't actually know but think it is likely YANBU. 10 years ago might be a bit inaccurate but I can't believe people are poorer now than they were in the early 80s.

I was 8 years old when we went on the family holiday to Skegness in 1981 My dad worked full time as a building site foreman and mum part time in a poultry factory. this paid for a mortgage food bills school uniforms etc AND a family holiday each year In 1977 and 1983 we went to Italy.

2 working class jobs like that wouldn't scratch the surface now Manic.

scarlettsmummy2 · 17/04/2014 00:16

I refer to foodbanks. What kind of evidence do you think I should be asking for? I am very confident that I have yet to refer someone who wasn't in dire straights and I have never asked for a bank statement.

caroldecker · 17/04/2014 01:45

Just asking what evidence you do ask for. How do you know they are in dire straights or is it just money for nothing? apologies could not resist the joke, question was genuine.

Deathraystare · 17/04/2014 08:28

Did anyone watch the thing about how to get a council flat, last night? Very depressing. Somewhat of a shock to hear again and again that poor people are being priced out of Tower Hamets. Tower Hamlets ffs!!! Soon there will be nowhere left for people on low/no income to live!!

scarlettsmummy2 · 17/04/2014 09:09

I know they are in dire straights as my support workers are already working with them on our employability programme. So we know, for example, that they have been sanctioned, or have had to buy a washing machine, or have an abusive ex who has taken their money.

Thomyorke · 17/04/2014 09:24

10 years ago I would buy hock wine, cheap diet lemonade and salad from Aldi/lidl, they where cheap but not to the the level they are now. It is only in the last four years that food has increased to such a value that the difference was enough for people to leave the big supermarkets. Where i am the sad thing is those who need the cheaper prices do not have the car or bus fares to get to the discount stores.