What will happen if food poverty and homelessness keep growing in the UK?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

I think it's generally accepted that food prices are rising, and will rise a fair bit more next year. I'm hoping that costs aren't completely insane, though. Does anyone know how much they are predicted to rise?

If they go up by much, surely food poverty and food bank usage is just going to keep going up?

What will happen to homeless people also? There is honestly a shocking amount of people on the street in central London. Many argue that a lot are beggars, and actually go home at night - but that's still not great? That people are cobbling together a living from begging on the streets?

I feel it's so easy to fall into horrific destitution these days - obviously, times over the course of human history were far more brutal and it's still vastly better for us living here in the UK today. I get that. Still, though, the world feels like a kind of scary place to be in many ways right now. As a chronically ill woman with no assets such as property, I feel an undercurrent of vulnerability all of the time. Maybe I need better anxiety medication

What do you think will happen to people in poverty in the UK over the next few years? Will things improve somehow?

I think the current government are hoping people will just starve to death. Then they won't have to deal with all those pesky poor people.

Every week, people are dying because of these policies. Nothing is changing because of those deaths.
I dont think things will improve, and I believe the current situation is being deliberately engineered.

I am seeing more and more homeless on the streets of the city where I live , I'm seeing people on Universal credit struggling and ill people 9 even those with cancer ) on basic ESA asking for food bank vouchers ( I do benefits advice work). It is shocking .

Monochrome, I disagree
I think they'll use them as workhouse labour or labour for schemes where you get paid in porridge oats for working for a giant company that pays the lowest possible tax

Sorry op I wish I could say I think things will improve but I don't. And it's not just about particular political parties. Labour wanted to make london like Monte Carlo - which has worked - the Tories do similar and even the Greens don't give a stuff about overpopulation which is wonderful for the powers that be because they need poor people to exploit for all the reasons given above.

I've lived in London all my life and do some volunteering with the food bank and have done with the local homeless shelter. I've seen things go up and down but I can't see any positives on the horizon. Obviously I'm one person working in one place though, others may have better news?

Monochrome, I disagree
I think they'll use them as workhouse labour or labour for schemes where you get paid in porridge oats for working for a giant company that pays the lowest possible tax

Sorry op I wish I could say I think things will improve but I don't. And it's not just about particular political parties. Labour wanted to make london like Monte Carlo - which has worked - the Tories do similar and even the Greens don't give a stuff about overpopulation which is wonderful for the powers that be because they need poor people to exploit for all the reasons given above.

I've lived in London all my life and do some volunteering with the food bank and have done with the local homeless shelter. I've seen things go up and down but I can't see any positives on the horizon. Obviously I'm one person working in one place though, others may have better news?

A millionaire philanthropist of my acquaintance thinks we're heading for a reenactment of the French Revolution . His sense is that the resentment towards those who have a huge amount, from those who have nothing is reaching a tipping point.

And look what lovely jobs the gig economy provides!

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/28/deliveroo-dark-kitchens-pop-up-feeding-the-city-london

These beggars aren’t fake at all. I see them very early every morning huddled in shop doorways in dirty duvets with laundry bags of possessions. It’s making me feel really angry. I feel like a twat every morning when I have to tell them I’m sorry I don’t have spare change. But it’s getting harder to do so. It’s 2017 and this shit shouldn’t be happening to people.

I work for a charity and my current case load is 42.
33 of those cases came to me in crisis/food poverty.
They are a mixture of young/old/single/m & f and famalies.
Some are working some on benefits.

The increase in food poverty cases in the last 18 months is 75%.

The goverment are relying on the charity sector to feed its country.
It will not improve until the goverment make the right changes.
I have no faith that they will.

There’s definitely an increase in actual rough sleepers in London. It’s back to the levels of the early 90s as far as I can see - I’m not sure what specific thing has changed.

Price of houses. It all comes back to that. The biggest housing boom in history is literally starving people.

What Annie said 🖕🏻

It’s appalling that in a developed, wealthy country people are living on the streets and children are growing up in poverty. I can’t see an end apart from civil unrest. It feels like we’re headed back to the winter of discontent or worse.

Annie, yes.

I thought we'd have civil unrest ages ago, if we haven't got it now, perhaps we won't. I'm saddened by what the future holds. My local council (outer London) are thinking of building "micro flats". The bread and circus tactics of government seem to work e.g. Olympics and no matter how much money government find for that sort of thing, people still seem to think it's unaffordable to have a welfare state or NHS.

I agree this is a problem which is going to get worse and worse. Brexit seems to have taken over politics when we really need a focus on health, social care and education. Charities shouldn't be expected to do everything to help the homeless and the poor. Cuts to mental health and addiction services haven't exactly helped either. Those people on the streets need help in various forms. The government needs to pull it's finger out, getting all those tax dodgers to pay would be good.

I live in a small, affluent town in the south-east and have done for 26 years. We've had rough sleepers in town for a year or so now, never had this before. We also have a fantastic PCSO who refers cases to us, and have managed to get several of these people housed in the last year, only to find that another takes their place.

In one of the nearby coastal towns, the police just keep moving the homeless on, and we think that's why some of them end up here, where the police have a more sympathetic approach. In another of the coastal towns, the police accept that there's nowhere for them to go (there's a great network of homelessness projects, but they're hopelessly oversubscribed) and leave them be.

Food bank use here has quadrupled over the last 3-4 years.

I really don't know how it will end. In my bleakest moments, I think the poor and homeless will be shipped off to workhouse-type institutions, or resort to sleeping rough in the countryside, where they'll go unnoticed. At other times, I think that eventually even the "they've only themselves to blame" people will be crying out for a more humane approach.

''Price of houses. It all comes back to that. The biggest housing boom in history is literally starving people.''

This is me trying to remember what my friend said, she went to an event on this, various academics, architects and activists hosting a series of talks on the housing crisis.

There are a couple of points that I think are relevant. Housing developers build in dribs and drabs, this is deliberate to stop a glut of houses on the market which would reduce prices. IOW, they build only enough in a given year to keep house prices increasing.

The houses that are built are not affordable for the most part, main focus is on large executive housing. There are estates with large numbers of these houses standing empty because they're unaffordable.

Worryingly, councils seem to be wanting to get in on the act. They see these property developers making a lot of money and have a share. You could end up with situations where councils are giving themselves planning permission to build on public spaces. There's a real threat to our parks etc here.

Increase in crime figures (unless clearly masked/distorted by govenment). Ever reducing spending power resulting in further employment. Maybe a rise people looking towards both extremes sides of the political spectrum for answers. Poverty is very dangerous for society. Wealth needs to keep moving and circulating not bottled up by a small % and held in empty London property and banks accounts.

To the OP, I feel that unless/until a larger number of people can see that the people one the street aren't just some breed apart but could be you or me tomorrow, this won't change.

The only party with a realistic chance of forming a national government (under our shitty outdated electoral system) that would have the power to address this is Labour, yet we are told Corbyn is a dangerous subversive because he has some aspirations to address poverty. Whilst people are too busy watching Eastenders and X Factor and starting a million bitchy threads about an American actress who's getting married, nothing's going to change.

And I really do think this all started with Thatcher.

Councils are already in cahoots with builders and council pay, at senior level, is crazy, another thing that happened under Labour.

Look at what happened to the West Hendon estate
We've already twice fought an application for posh flats in the local park
Next time we will lose I expect

Also, frankly, look at Grenfell to see what government think of anyone who isn't a rich person.

We are going to have to leave London, only here because of family, but also I think the problems of London will spread outwards so I honestly think we need to buy something with a bit of land and try to be self sufficient. The removal of the NHS will mean that many of us will be finished if we are unlucky enough to get ill.

As far as the housing situation is concerned and stagnant wages we really need to get migration under control. We have more and more people chasing after a relatively static amount of housing which means there is a shortage and prices are driven up.

YY to corrupt councils - see Private Eye every week.

Locally to me developers ripped out an ancient hedgerow that was supposed to stay as it was. The Council reluctantly took a look (after initally issuing a sneering response claiming the developer was "coppicing) then accepted there had been a direct contravention of the planning permission and decided to do........nothing.

BTW we don't have a housing crisis - we have a too much economic activity in too few areas crisis. You can easy(ish) find a place to live in an area where there are no jobs.

Also, frankly, look at Grenfell to see what government think of anyone who isn't a rich person.

YY to this - I was really shocked by the shitty attitude before and after the fire.

Part of it is how insulated it is possible to be from all this. Where I live there is no homelessness or beggars. None! There was one guy last year found lying on the floor outside the town hall; the call went out and within a week he had been housed and given basic furniture and a labouring job. When it's just one guy you can do that sort of thing. Rent is reasonably cheap, housing is reasonably good, crime is low, community is very social and crucially, there's no real shortage of jobs here- in fact it's hard to fill some - we've been looking for a PHP dev for ages, and you have a long wait for tradesmen and so on. There are always notices in the local shops looking for shop assistants and waiting staff and so on. This isn't a rich place particularly but the standard of living for ordinary people is decent, until now anyway!

If I didn't commute into a big city quite regularly, and had I not previously lived in a very deprived inner city area, I think I'd be totally unaware of how bad it is there. I would have no idea.