Are you seeing much poverty and despair where you are at the minute?

[whereisitgoing]

I'm not sure if I can face doing my volunteering shift this weekend at a street soup kitchen (still have time to cancel) as not sure I can be tough enough and keep my mask in place. It is the first Christmas since my mum died and I'm crumbling.

Usually I love my volunteer shift, it's really brutal though to see the dire straits people are in. So much despair. The numbers needing help have exploded since covid and this winter are considerably higher again. At the moment I just don't think I can do it, everything seems quite bleak.

Sometimes people are at the end of their tether when they get to us and they are understandably and justifiably stressed and irritated - normally I can handle this without any bother, but not sure I can do it this weekend.

The kitchen will have loads of volunteers so it won't matter if I'm not there anyway. But it has me wondering, are you seeing more people needing help where you are this winter? Is there more palpable despair and anger out there, or am I just projecting my own shit year?

I think you need to care for yourself.
Cancel now while they have time to re-organise.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

I wonder if this feeling is basically the effect of the gap widening between haves and have nots.

There’s a lot of income inequality in this country.

I think this is because those that are struggling almost become invisible in our society. We notice the extensions, building work and new cars far more than missing carpets and curtains or people walking everywhere.

I live in a bog standard middle class area and a few years ago would have said exactly the same as you but then started volunteering with a local crisis charity that provides bedding and clothing to those in need. The demand for this is huge as people can’t afford the basics anymore like school shoes or pyjamas for the children. Clothes are donated to the charity and then redistributed to those in need who are referred though social services, schools, children’s charities etc.

I find it desperately sad that we live in a society where some people get rid of immaculate clothing, often still with labels attached, whilst there are others who can’t afford to buy a winter coat all of whom live in the same town. The demand for the charity is growing rapidly week by week..

Northern city. Number of people attending the Food Bank I help, doubled to 4,000+ in 2023 compared to 2022. Donations have halved. Debt counselling needed more and more. Increasingly people are telling me (when I am asking for donations) that they have had to go to a Food Bank themselves. Obviously poor people apologising for only being able to give a few small coins. People worried about not feeding children.

Vauxhall, people sleeping in the roof cavities of blocks of flats, roaming streets early morning to steal milk bottles etc, hygiene items being collected at local Tate library, obviously destitute people, very poorly dressed, begging for food on the tube....

Small, relatively affluent Derbyshire town, people sleeping outside train station at night, many small Coops collecting for Food banks. A lot of people very worried about inability to pay gas, electric, rent, mortgage etc.

Grim.

I think it's very much turned into the 'haves' and 'have nots' and not all of it is pure income based- those that are earning ok but have small mortgages or social housing are often just as well off as those earning well but with huge mortgages and rents. I have friends in the midlands who go away 4 or 5 times a year abroad-but you wouldn't think as well off!! And yet 'posh ' friends in London who think they are ok if they go away once.

We have a local community hub facebook page which seem to be putting out appeals so for example saying they have a family of five with x number of children who need presents and help and people donate stuff. There seems to be more appeals than previous years but then we really aren't in a deprived area. I also see some poverty through my job ( benefits advisor) , families usually struggling due to illness and usually because benefits that they are entitled to are not in place, often because they haven't actually pursued claiming them for some reason or they can't do the claims online so need assistance. I took a food parcel to someone the other day who didn't like how the job centre people spoke to him so just cancelled his claim, some people just don't help themselves much ! We get a lot of others who have had to give up work ( usually mental health or long covid ) and are struggling to claim disability benefits and still have mortgages to pay.

OP didn't ask if we think there is poverty. We know there is. OP asked what we are seeing in our local areas, which is what people are answering.

I'm not so sure. I know people are worse off and I see more beggers but I also see and know of them being driven in to town in the morning snd picked up at 5-6pm. They aren't anywhere to be seen by 6pm. The genuine homeless population in the town centre is static. The same people some for years. A few of them unfortunately are there by choice. But that's just my local towns

You can't pour from a empty jug. If your not sure, give it a miss this year

Yes. I'm an admin of a local FB group.
Never before have we had anyone post asking if anyone can spare some food as they don't have enough until payday... Until this year.

We got maybe one post in a blue moon for the first half of the year.

Since September, we have had about 5/6 a week.

I've been an admin on this page for 10 years. Until this year, I have never known families needing to beg for food from strangers on the internet. Ever.

Yet, companies boast of record-breaking profits. It's like we are living in a alternate world.

There's definitely more street homeless in London at the moment, and blatant daytime drug use is much more noticeable, even in the main central areas. Statistically, most street homeless in London are Romanians and that's been the case for years. Most homelessness is invisible, because it will be people sofa-surfing or living in temporary accommodation - I wonder whether the increase in street homelessness is because temporary accommodation is full of people who wouldn't otherwise need it due to rent rises and so on.

I live in central London and it's just as busy as always in the shops and restaurants. No huge signs of CoL in my circles, though we're all middle class with solid, 'safe' professions (teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc), so our wages haven't changed. A few friends are worried about mortgage increases, but for them this just means taking less extravagant holidays. I think as always with CoL, there's a huge divide in experience and many of us will be insulated from it entirely, which is why so little is done governmentally to help those in need. The middle classes won't stop voting Tory until they're the ones up against the wall.

I understand what you are saying. I have always been first in line to care and help and support people. I have always cared very much. I have used my own resources to help many people. I wanted to do it and I was happy to.

Since my child passed I haven't been able to care so much. I just don't have the room in me to make space for carrying anything more than I already do. It's not that I don't care, I just feel numb about it all. I can't carry that like I did when I had more space in me to do so.

I hope my capacity to care and help comes back one day but now, I'm just not able to muster the care I would have in the past.

I think it is normal when you're already carrying a lot to just not be able to take on other people's burdens sometimes.

The world does seem very brutal at the moment. I'm focusing on making my house cosy and putting lots of flowers and plants in my garden. It's so when I come home, I can dust off the world outside.

Not in rural Leicestershire by any chance are you? Because that's what it's like here.

I messaged the foodbank on Thursday to ask if I could drop off a donation but they said they had no space, so people are obviously being generous with their money.

I'll answer the thread title question.

"Are you seeing much poverty and despair where you are at the minute?"

Yes. Less than 5 minutes walk from me is a small country park. Within that country park is a smaller settlement of homeless people. I see it every day when I walk my dog. It started as a single tent. There's now 5 tents and a small ramshackle cabin made out of old pallets and a tarpaulin.

I met one of the women that lives there. She's not a druggie or a drunk or a prostitute or any of the other preconceived notions, she had a job, she lost her job, she has no kids and gets very little help. £340 unemployment a month doesn't go far. She lost her private rental, social housing is years waiting. I bought her a breakfast at the local cafe and signposted her to the local foodbank and charity that can help.

I live in a social home myself. It's currently 11c in my bedroom, I haven't put my heating on yet this year.
But I am lucky, so lucky, I could be living in a tent in the woods.
I do not.mpan about wearing a jumper whilst i sit on a comfy sofa with an electric light watching dumb YouTube crap with my dog.. I may be living on less than £12k a year, but I'm richer than millions of people.

Do I see poverty? Absolute poverty.. and I live in poverty. Poverty that a lot of people couldn't imagine exists.. but then a lot of people spend more a month on their phone and car than my daughter and I live on. 🤣🤣🤣🤪

At home, no, but then I am aware we live in a leafy suburban bubble.

But through my work, yes. And right at the point when the need has never been higher our budgets are cut to the bone and we are all burning out so badly

I am in Australia, so not really relevant to you Op but things here are very tough for a lot of people. I live in a low socio-economic area and know several working family's living in tents in people's backyards and another living in a busted old caravan.

I am a single mum and have been for years. I never really struggled financially until the last 18 months. I have always lived with in my means and have cut back on so much lately to barely scrape even. It's sad but there are a lot of people around who finding it much harder.

I used to donate to food bank and buy a gift with my kids for the local wishing tree. Now I'm lucky to not need them myself.

Our town has a Xmas Market, and I was surprised how empty it was last night.

In my area of C Lon it's nowhere near as bad as pre-covid times. I think the streets got cleaned up and then they used the local private security patrols and station patrols to keep people from coming back how it was.

I recently saw three police officers brutally bullying a vulnerable homeless woman who had attempted to take up residence on a bench out the front of the main station but because it's private property they can legit force a person to move on if requested by the private security.

The way they were bullying her was disgusting and she was old and vulnerable. They weren't trying to help her just hatefully yelling telling her to get away and picking up her bags and slinging them. My area's been gentrified and I guess they're ramping up the intolerance.

I have had a job for the past 25 years with frontline engagement (headteacher of a socially derived school) , director of a social charity. volunteer for a food bank and homeless charity

No- pretty much like it has always been
Shit
Maybe more people jumping in the bandwagon this year who will piss off in a few weeks and leave those who actually care to it

I started in 1995 and every single year has been battle with the middle class elite (aka 95% of mumsnet) saying a lot but doing sod all

Some people really have blinkers on. It's easy enough to ignore it if you don't actually have to deal with anyone suffering.

I volunteer in a foodbank. I’ve heard some things that have just broken my heart. Many working parents but the safety net for those in cities with high housing costs has more or less gone. There are children in extreme poverty. Even more so for disabled children. It’s so horrible wrong. The election can’t come soon enough.

I'm not in the UK and so my post may be irrelevant - there's an uptick in people off their tits on various street drugs, mostly fentanyl.

Lots of organised bands of beggars who are dropped off in supermarket car parks and at intersections.

The city where I live is experiencing an influx of asylum seekers from Central and South America - there are probably 25k immigrants at this point, with more arriving daily on busses. This is hot on the heels of a big influx of Ukrainians.

. It is hoped that the hispanic immigrants will receive work permits soon and find their feet. The vast majority were completely unprepared for the cold weather, so right now we are experiencing quite a humanitarian crisis. City and volunteer efforts combined have helped a little, but the need is huge.

It’s this, we’re in an affluent bubble tbh so understand how people don’t see it. I am on periphery of council services and can sense rumblings about more cuts which I don’t know if people can take.

It’s perhaps not quite what you are asking but what I find astonishing is how less far our own money stretches - we’re definitely firmly in the middle, very fortunate- but we’re being careful in a way that we haven’t really had to be before. I find it odd that there aren’t more people in the middle. Everyone at school seems to have massive cars, lots of activities which I think is why it doesn’t feel like there’s a problem when there clearly is. Only a few people who I would say are ’normal’ - OK but not loaded. When I was growing up it felt like there were a lot more people in the middle? Not the extremes now?

@Countrydiary I think the middle has been hollowed out more.

I have definitely felt my money doesn’t go as far & have stopped planning any renovations & can’t save as much but I seem unusual amongst my peers. Some have made noises about mortgages but it hasn’t stopped them going on holiday etc

I don't live in London either! I work in a fairly average northern city, and yes - they do sit on the high street.