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Britain’s largest food bank network has warned that UK homeless rates will double by Christmas along with an explosion in demand for charity food packages, as income support schemes are scaled down. and employment due to the coronavirus.
Trussell Trust predicts that at least 670,000 more people will be left destitute in the last three months of the year, a level of poverty that will leave them unable to meet basic needs for food, shelter or clothing, if the government withdraws Covid support for low-income people. homes.
Despite unprecedented demand for charity food since the closure (100,000 people used the food banks for the first time between April and June), the trust said ending the permit in October would lead to increased use of the food banks. of at least 61%, equivalent to one year later. -Year of increase of 300,000 plots.
“Our research finds that Covid-19 has led to tens of thousands of new people needing to use a food bank for the first time. This is not OK. If we don’t act now, there will be more catastrophic increases in poverty in the future, ”said Emma Revie, CEO of the Trussell Trust.
The trust said the impact of rising unemployment on low-income families after the planned liquidation of the job retention plan raised the prospect of a “significant reshaping of the landscape of poverty, homelessness and food insecurity in this country.”
His forecasts come amid growing concern among poverty analysts and activists about the dire consequences of an abrupt withdrawal of the license at the end of October, along with the failure to retain the temporary increase of 20 pounds a week. on the universal credit and tax credit rates that you must end. next April.
The trust said that withdrawing the £ 20 weekly increase, which would leave millions of people £ 1,040 a year worse off overnight, would increase use of food banks by 10%. This follows estimates from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which said last week that eliminating the uprising would put 700,000 more people into poverty.
Although the trust welcomed the £ 9bn Covid welfare package provided by the government since March, it said that increased use of food banks indicated that this was not enough to help people in crisis: the 43% of people referred to food banks in April had an income that was “not at the level of maintaining a minimum quality of life”.
Analysis of the use of the food banks since the closure suggested that families with children and people who identified themselves as “black or black British” were disproportionately likely to use the food banks. Only 4% of food bank users were suspended, suggesting that the plan had had a positive impact on poverty levels.
The income impact experienced by millions as a result of the Covid crisis was vividly reflected in data from the Trussell Trust food bank: 56% of people referred for charity food had reported a drop in household income since early March; 32% of the people who use their food banks had lost their jobs.
The trust’s food banks reported extraordinary spikes in demand: the Hammersmith and Fulham food bank in west London said it typically delivered 110 coupons a week, but at the height of the shutdown it delivered food to 150 people a day. The Caernarfon food bank said its normal referral rate of 20 people a day quadrupled on peak days.
The trust asked the government to reconsider the looming gulf in license payments, secure the £ 20 increase to universal credit and reinvest in local welfare plans. Their forecasts were made by academics at Heriot-Watt University and the National Institute for Social and Economic Research.
A government spokesperson said: ‘We have provided £ 9.3 billion of additional social assistance to help those most in need, including increasing universal credit by up to £ 20 per week, as well as introducing income protection schemes, holiday mortgage and additional support for tenants. Meanwhile, since mid-March we have supported 3.9 million universal credit applications and made 1.3 million advance payments to people who couldn’t wait.
“We have already taken steps to help ease the burden of universal credit debt repayments, including reducing the maximum deduction from 40% to 30% of a claimant’s standard allowance. From October 2021 we will reduce it even more to 25% and we will double the time available to pay an advance to 24 months ”.