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

[seventyfive]

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?

Actually going against the grain I think YANBU

This isn't to say of course that people aren't in really poverty. I think had they been around in such numbers and with as much publicity in the past they would have been used just as much. I expect the bar might have just been set a bit lower (or higher?) as to who was eligible to use them though.

I've had no money to eat before, I think the longest I went without food was three days and when I mean without food I really mean without food, without anything and only water to drink. I suspect even then I'd have been ineligible though, I was working for low pay and my rent was high (one room bedsit.) This was a regular thing as well, I couldn't afford to both have somewhere to life and eat. Ironically that was some of the happiest times for my life, I was young, going out clubbing every night, maybe if I'd made 'better' choices I would have been able to feed myself.

I'm not suggesting this is the situation for others though or that they just need to make better choices (although I'm sure some do.) I think more telling is not the increased use of food banks but the increased number of people with malnutrition admitted to hospitals I heard about on the radio. Of course malnutrition is a many complex thing. I will try to find a link about it.

Ken- of course you would have been eligible for help from a food bank. Many of those using them ARE working. In my area, a big issue is debt. Payday lenders now set up a thing that the money owed is literally taken from an account as soon as money hits, effectively clearing the account out.

My mum would have found these so useful when we were growing up. I can remember so many days when the cupboards were bare and she would go without food so me and my sister could eat. Not very nice.

YABU

In our area you are referred through the cab, they have a small form and on it there are 2 choices, between benefits or homeless. You are then given another piece of paper that you have to take to the food bank.

Its not 'popular' its needed. Also the salvation army have been doing food parcels for yonks, but they only give out a certain amount to the same person through the year.

When I fill in a form saying i am on benefits, what checks are there that i have not spent my money on something else less useful (gambling, alchol, cigarettes, sky tv) etc?

There were food banks around ten years ago. It's not a case of being popular, it's a case of being necessary.

There's always one, isn't there, carol

What do you want, for food bank staff to go round people's houses to check that they haven't got goats, 500 inch LCD TVs and stashes of booze, fags and drugs? What you want is to see people utterly stripped of dignity. You're just another benefit basher.

If you knew people getting by on benefits - and I do - you would see that the reality is very, very different for the vast majority.

carol - Most foodbanks you can only visit a maximum of 3 times a year. They are for crises. Most common are benefit sanctions, or delays in benefits/getting paid. It is really easy to provide proof of this to a CAB advisor.

You bring in your letter, carol, informing you of your sanction, or that they are still processing your claim, or that your benefits have been suspended pending appeal. And as stated, you can't just keep rocking up for food.

But it's easier for people to say it's because poor people are feckless.

What checks are there that i have not spent my money on something else less useful (gambling, alchol, cigarettes, sky tv) etc?
It's none of your business or anybodies business what people spend their benefits on. Oh, and when I was on benefits, I did get the odd bottle of wine, but I worked at home looking after four people with disabilities, got between four and six hours sleep a night, and fancied a glass now and then. I would go without a meal or two later in the week to pay for it, nobody else did. It's not your business.

I think maybe what the op means is that if there are more food banks then there will be more people using them. Statistically saying that 'more people than ever are using food banks', is useless information without the information to back it up.
Let's say, and these are numbers I'm plucking out of the air, that 10 years ago there were 10 food banks in the country, each food bank helped 100 families a week. So that's 1000 families a week across the uk using foodbanks. Chances are that there were other families who could have used them, but there wasn't one in their town.
Fast forward 10 years to today and there are now 20 food banks in total. Each bank is helping 100 families a week. Do now it's 2000 families that are being helped by the food bank. Twice the amount!
However, just because the number of people being helped has gone up it doesn't mean that there weren't 2000 families in need 10 years ago, just that 1000 of them didn't have access to a food bank.
As I say, this is just numbers plucked out of the air.

20 years ago I was signing on and shopped at Kwiksave! Remember them?

Food banks have been around since Victorian times. The reason for the upsurge is thay welfare cuts and sanctions have many thousands more welfare recipients, most of them in work, absolutely desperate.

What's going on in this country makes me sick to the stomach.

No, pipbin you are wrong. There are more food banks because there are more people who need food banks. It really is as simple as that.

Just asking a question, one reason more people are using foodbanks could be that they are available - its an extra resource so people are spending money on something else, which 10 years ago they would spend on food.
I am not saying it is, I am asking what the evidence is that more people are in need, and there does not appear to be any, despite pointythings claim - unless you have seom you could point me to.

'one reason more people are using foodbanks could be that they are available - its an extra resource so people are spending money on something else, which 10 years ago they would spend on food.'

Once again, you cannot just rock up and get free food as many times as you want.

Secondly, the something else that people are spending their money on that they were spending on food ten years ago is very likely electricity and gas.

Falling for the government's bollocks is doing exactly what they want, wagging the dog so you turn against each other instead of Big Business that is robbing all of us blind.

The price of power and gas has gone up astronomically in the past decade.

I'm not saying that it's all lies. I do believe that more people need to use them than they did ten years ago, but I think that all figures have to be taken with a word of caution. You can write the headline 'twice as many families using food banks as ten years ago', it doesn't mean that twice as many families NEED food banks. Those families might not have been able to access food banks.

there is also access to highly addictive gaming machines. thanks to lobbying by the gambling industry and successive governments

other gambling in the form of lotteries

high street and online short term loans accessible in an instant, repayable at 1000 percent interest

lots of changes since the 80s. maybe personal choice but sometimes legislation works better

I referto a food bank,do you have any idea just how desperate and stripped of dignity people are when they come to me for a voucher, and even then half the time it comes up in a conversation about other things and I have to persuade them to take the help.

I have had one Chancer in about a year and a half so not denying they exist but they are few and far between.

I have to fill in a form with all details which goes back centrally and is double checked/cross referenced with all referrals so people only ge their three goes at the food bank, unless I call and explain that the persons situation is dire, they are working with me and other agencies to resolve it and I support them getting help for a little longer (which I did for one person over the christmas period when they had exactly zero income)

I cannot stomach this insinuation it's an easy option or that most people using the service don't really need it. If you think that perhaps you should go volunteer with them for a few days and see the reality of the people coming in.

caroldecker are you really not aware that the amount of money people receive in benefits - whether in work or otherwise - has been far, far outstripped by inflation and by the enormous increase in the cost of living? The price of food, electricity, gas, rent and everything else has increased hugely. Benefits have not kept pace. That is where the need is coming from. You have but to look at your own household bills to see this. But of course you're all right, Jack...

Why don't you do what Rhonda suggests and see for yourself before judging so glibly? The evidence is there. Go and look for it.

Its not 'popular' its needed. Also the salvation army have been doing food parcels for yonks, but they only give out a certain amount to the same person through the year

And how much of this is caused by sanctions due to workfare which ooooops the SA is using.

Ten years ago there were crisis loans available.

Ten years ago there was easier and cheaper access to credit.

Ten years ago unemployment was lower.

Ten years ago utilities were cheaper.

Ten years ago there hadn't been a financial crisis.

Ten years ago support services still had budgets.

Ten years ago was a long time and a lot has happened in the meantime.

I am a referrer for one of the largest food bank networks in the country it is my understanding that my work (and other agencies that do the same work) are one of the industries that make one of the highest amount of referrals.

If a significant amount of our referrals turn out to be bogus we lose our ability to refer anybody, you can bet your last pound that we take that bloody seriously actually scrap that you can bet my last pound.

rhonda and dark hi, pleased to see you both popping up on here,I always find your food bank posts useful when people don't understand how they work and had been avoiding low income/benefit threads for awhile so had missed you both

The organisation I work for helped set up a foodbank. The reason for setting it up was that we were seeing many many more people struggling to feed themselves and their families.

And still pay for power to cook food at all. Or gas.