An alternative to food banks?

This will never be ,ele This government is ideologically bound to a small
state so there will be no subsidies.

I think it is a brilliant idea.
It has been tried and tested. So no excuse really.

Too funny, no stigma standing in a queue to eat in a canteen ? seems even pride and self respect belongs to the affluent in society

These days they call it McDonalds.

look at these prices

And some supermarket eateries feed kids free. Morrisons do. I don't think national canteens are needed these days.

Little difference between canteens for the poor and soup kitchens

There are cafes in the crypts of several city churches here, run by volunteers. They produce a limited menu cooked on the spot - one soup, a couple of hot dishes, a couple of cold ones, a couple of desserts, tea, coffee, fruit juice, a cake or two, biscuits - at very reasonable prices. The original purpose was to feed the many homeless or unemployed, but the customers are by no means only those, there are local workers nipping out for a quick lunch, elderly women meeting for a cuppa, passing tourists who came in to visit the church. At the next table there might be someone who lives on the street, with his possessions at his feet, spinning out his tea in the warm, in the other direction two stairheid wifies from the tenements, and across the way two men in suits from the offices nearby.

At lunch-time, yes, you have to queue (what busy eatery is any different) but there is no sense of a charity. The food is not being doled out as a gift from the affluent, you are buying it at cost price, and you queue all together.

Some of the effort that goes into establishing food banks could support this kind of initiative, along with grants to cover the costs (minimal if they are staffed by volunteers and housed in unused basements)

It will be interesting to see how Manna in Liverpool works out.

Might it have parallels with sure start, where the wealthier are the enthusiastic ones?

No way can a canteen for the poor be compared with eating in a church vault cafe . Will there be a mix of society queuing for the canteens ? No

The Junk Food Project in Manchester?
Red Tower community cafe in York?

I think the government should be embarrassed that these places have to exist in the sixth richest country in the world.
Will the budget help? I doubt it.

You go to a food bank because you have no money to buy food. Nobody who has to use a food bank will be able to buy from these cafes.

That Manchester project sounds excellent jendurham Donations only (pay what you can afford)

The real junk food project

The cafes will be too expensive the other days of the week I suppose. Cost price is still not low enough.
Plus people realisticallyhave to live near the cafes.

It is, of course, much simpler to rant about the iniquity of the government allowing there to be people with little or no money, and to dismiss any ideas for helping them which do not follow one's own preferred policies.

Yes, it certainly is Elegran...

Rant ?

There is no point anyone living rough going to a food bank - they have no way of cooking the store-cupboard supplies from there, and you can't sit in a food bank for an hour over a bowl of soup and a roll.

The users of food banks are not just those with no money at all, many of them are working and find there is too much week left at the end of the money. Providing a good meal at low cost for someone in the middle of their workday feeds them so that they can concentrate on the family and not go without themselves.

The problem needs to be tackled on all fronts, some people wouldn't go near a food bank but would buy themselves a cheap meal in a cafe. Macdonalds is all very well, but there is a temptation to have chips with everything.

The cafes I am talking about are not grey canteens for dishing out gruel to the destitute paupers, they are enterprises run by church members with simple but pleasant surroundings and wholesome food. They cover their costs but don't make a profit. Injections of "welfare" grants would make it possible for them to do more and keep their prices even lower.

I have an alternative to food banks. A good well paid job. A well funded welfare State with much higher and universal social payments as they have in Western Europe.

I cant believe some of the responses on here????????????????

Go on then...

Western Europe? As in Spain (1.5m people using food banks), France (over 1m people using food banks)...?

I could go on, but you could find that information our for yourself if you weren't so determined that everything is the fault of 'this government'.

Unfortunately, not everyone can have, or do, a well paid job, for a good variety of reasons. even some people who are paid reasonably well cannot manage their budget, for a good variety of reasons.Some do no job at all and are drug users, have mental health problems etc.

There always seems to be more beggars on the streets of other European cities, including very old people, and people with dreadful deformities. How come they are not better looked after?

George is bringing in £9 minimum wage by 2020.