Cost Of Living Crisis: Situation In West Sussex "Deeply Shocking"

Foodbanks have become the ‘front line’ when it comes to supporting people during the cost of living crisis, West Sussex health leaders have been told.

The news was shared during a meeting of the Health & Wellbeing Board where members also spoke about the increasing calls for help with housing and the need for councils, charities and social care organisations to work together, as they did during the height of the pandemic.

Catherine Howe, chief executive of Adur and Worthing councils, described how district and borough councils were seeing an increase in the number of people asking for help when it came to food and housing.

She acknowledged the important work of food-bank charity the Trussell Trust, saying it was ‘very well-geared to working with the system’ – but advised board members that they needed to ‘change the way you are thinking about who is turning up at our front door’.

Looking at mutual aid food-banks and the like, which have sprung up due to a local need, Ms Howe said:

“In that model we see tremendous need emerging in a way which is very difficult for us to wrestle with because it doesn’t fit into our pathways – it doesn’t fit in to the systems we have set up with something like the Trussell Trust.”

She spoke highly of the efforts of communities which had come together to help those in need and suggested their way of working was ‘scalable and supportable if we manage to resource it’.

Describing how some users of one Adur community food-bank were in turn stepping up to help others, she said:

“The people who were supported through the first wave and the first iteration of the food-bank during Covid are now turning up and supporting other people, which I think is incredible.

“These are people who have their own challenges who are volunteering their time for their neighbours.

“If we can figure out how to support that we have an incredible resource there of people who aren’t going to ‘expert’ people with their problems and give them recommendations.

“They’re going to sit down beside them, see them as people and actually help them cope.

“There’s something about really understanding what that front line of the food-bank looks like and feels like and figuring out how we manage to support it.”

On the issue of housing, Ms Howe told the meeting that councils were being approached by people who had never needed help before – a situation she called ‘deeply shocking’.

She added:

“That will only increase as interest rates go up and as the housing market tanks.

“I was particularly struck by being directly contacted by a middle manager in the NHS, who is a single mother, who is no longer able to afford to live in the area.

“We had to recommend that she presented herself as at risk of homelessness.”

Other horror stories came from Helen Rice, chief executive of Age UK West Sussex, who said staff were hearing ‘hugely concerning calls’, including a rise in people talking about suicide.

Sue Livett, managing director of the Aldingbourne Trust, warned that there was still something of a stigma among those in need when it came to asking for help – a statement which suggested that the problem is even larger than feared.

Another problem raised by Ms Livett was the high turnover of social care staff – 30 per cent – and the vacancy level – 10 per cent.

And she pointed out that some staff were no better off than the people they were trying to help.

She told the meeting that she had heard about organisations putting food in office cupboards so that staff had something to eat.

She added: “It’s not just the people we support – it’s the people who provide the support.”

Emily King, the county council’s assistant director (communities) said 519 people contacted the Community Hub for help in September and 527 in October.

As of November 3, another 66 had asked for help.

Members voted to include a cost of living addendum in the county’s Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2019-2024.

It proposed four key principles:

• To optimise the use of data and intelligence to understand how the cost of living pressures are impacting the population – and to share that intelligence with partners
• To engage with residents to give an insight into how to develop the response to the crisis
• To work in partnership with others to avoid duplication and reduce gaps in provision
• To make sure existing services are widely promoted, accessible and optimised to maximise the benefit and ensure they reach those most in need of support.