Food banks

So these new secular food banks are not essentially the same thing as what religious and charitable groups offered before?

I think they are and I am tired of hearing about the supposed fragmentation of society. I am not seeing it, at least if there is fragmentation it is no worse than it has ever been.

Of course they are, I didn't suggest otherwise.

I do think families are more mobile and fragmented than they used to be. People are far more mobile, especially in large towns and cities, which is where most of the population now live. Family breakdown, the current system of shorthold tenancies, the bedroom tax, sale of what were council houses and with local authorities now moving homeless families to other towns 10s of miles from their home borough, those most in need do not get the chance to build up those close supportive networks based, not just on family but neighbours in a very small area were they lived for long periods.

My mother's family, Irish immigrants, lived in a small area of Bermondsey, for three generations and almost 100 years. My grandmother, a clever and socially mobile lady then succeeded in moving herself and her children to a semi-detached house in a pleasant suburb. The family are now spread all over the country from York to Lyme Regis.

If you are on a reasonable income, have access to computers, cars or can afford public transport then family and friendship ties can easily be maintained over long distances, but if you are poor, dependent on others as to where you live, the whole social welfare system set up to support you can completely fracture the fragile informal support system that also helps to sustain you.

Before food banks there were workhouses.

I heard the CEO of the Trussell Trust on the radio. The first Trussell Trust foodbank was in Salisbury, when they realised that people were going hungry on the streets. I would never have thought of Salisbury being a place where hunger was noticed.

No model country then? I rather thought not, just endless complaints about this country. We live in such a difficult world where perfection is just not possible. People do what they can with what they've got, and it can't always be totally right. Instead of constant criticism, how about a few concrete suggestions for a solution?

Talking of foodbanks (at the risk of repeating myself) if you shop online at Ocado you can make a donation, say £5, and they will double it and supply goods to their partner foodbanks for £10.

They supply from lists sent by the foodbanks so only wanted items are sent.

OK - concrete solution number 1

Revisit the sanctions regime and work out how it is effecting the poor.

Little point in complaining about a country one doesn't live in

Haven't read one post asking for perfection, just for support for the vulnerable in this country .

Read an interesting article about 'the guilty middle' seems they are the Tory party's concerns, and no, I can't recall where I read it, not in the guardian though

Why do we need a model country? Why can we not be the model ourselves?

If you want model countries on welfare, and how to look after your people, I would say Norway and Denmark; in fact any country that has a much smaller gap between those at the top and those at the bottom of the welfare system.
Doubtless, Niggly, you will find a reason to niggle about that.

I'm curious. Is there any country in the world that posters here consider in every respect perfect, and would consider to be a shining example to all the rest? I don't think one exists, but you may know differently. Before shouting me down, this is a genuine question.

Far from a genuine question Niggly - it's dripping with sarcasm.

I think we all accept that nowhere is perfect but some places can be better than others, and although the UK compared to many places is a fortunate place for us to have been born in we can always strive to make it better for those at the bottom.

You must think what you will, and I'll leave you all to it.

Again? Hurray!

Agree with you Riverwalk.
Whenever this government is criticised, some always say it was worse under Labour. So what?
Food banks were not worse. There were not so many families starving because of benefit sanctions. The reason that there has been such a rise in in-work welfare benefits is because of low wages. That's something that needs addressing, then we will not need food banks.

One thing that the Tories never seem to realise is that if you take money away from those on low pay, less money circulates in the local economy.

www.minimumincomestandard.org/

This is an interesting tool, to see how much people are thought to need to live on, run by two universities.

Ha,ha! Apparently DD needs an annual income of nearly £31,000 (no chance!)

I, however, am supposed to be able to manage on just under £8,000 p.a....

Careful dj, don't go too far with the person comments.

Sorry, personal.

whitewave's suggestion that the benefit sanctions regime be revisited and improved is a good one. Do universities do this kind of research? If so, who would fund it (I'm guessing not the current government)?

Here is another: the government and local authorities sort out a housing system that aims to keep people within their areas and in close touch with their informal networks.

There should be a conscious effort when families have housing problems to ensure children stay in the same school until an acceptable permanent housing solution is found (moving someone 40 plus miles to a new home is not an acceptable solution). Likewise rehousing is not acceptable if someone has to leave their job of travel great distances to get to it.

Talking of foodbanks (at the risk of repeating myself) if you shop online at Ocado you can make a donation

I sometimes shop at Lidl and spend what I save by shopping there, instead of Ocado, on a big bag of food for the food bank.
(Except for the milk, which I buy somewhere else at a fair price for farmers )

I'm curious. Is there any country in the world that posters here consider in every respect perfect
um, er, I was going to suggest Iceland, but then read this:
Iceland's new poor line up for food
I don't tell my children where I get the food, I'm too ashamed," said Iris Aegisdottir, an Icelander who has been going to a food bank every week for a year to feed her three children.
um er, thinks - Canada is prosperous, isn't it?
www.foodbankscanada.ca/Learn-About-Hunger/About-Hunger-in-Canada.aspx

I know there are food banks in Australia.

I know - New Zealand!!
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/what-happens-when-you-scrap-the-welfare-state-new-zealand-has-and-its-economy-is-stronger-but-there-1428688.html


I am trying to find one, nigglynellie
But perhaps those countries without food banks are those countries who have ragged street children living on rubbish dumps.

The UK may not be perfect and of course problems need to be faced and if possible solved - but it is a damn sight better than many many other places in the world.

This is the point I was trying, rather clumsily, to make! Things are imperfect here but a darn sight better than some countries, for which, bearing in mind the size of our population compared to let's say Nordic countries perhaps we could give just a little credit, not too much, but perhaps just a little.

Oh, you're back, Niggly. I thought you said you were going to leave us to it.

Like I said, the Nordic countries do not have the same problems we have in this country because they do not have such a big gap between the top and bottom earners. They pay more taxes so that when they have problems with work or illness, they are given more money to live on.

The problem with this country is that those at the top want to keep more of their money and do not want to distribute it.
Tax credits was a way of distribution from rich to poor, which is why Brown brought it in. Osborne has got his comeuppance even from his own side because he tried to make poor people poorer. Now they are trying to make food banks part of the welfare system, which I think is quite appalling.

Ana, that's why there are benefits, because families do not get enough to live on.

Brown may have introduced the tax credits system, which was massively expensive to set up and has been beset with problems ever since, but it only replaced the system which was already in place.

Brown didn't single-handedly lift all the poor out of poverty, any more than he saved the world banks.

When Labour came into office in 1997 childhood and pensioner poverty stood at 25% under the Tories when he left office it was just above 15%.

Like I said, the Nordic countries do not have the same problems we have in this country because they do not have such a big gap between the top and bottom earners. They pay more taxes so that when they have problems with work or illness, they are given more money to live on.

Yes, but when we were in Finland (in the mid 1990s) people were complaining because the income tax rate was over 50%!
Now: The Personal Income Tax Rate in Finland stands at 51.50 percent. Personal Income Tax Rate in Finland averaged 53.10 percent from 1995 until 2014
That is a huge slice of your income.

www.norden.org/en/news-and-events/news/new-nordic-study-food-banks-have-a-big-unused-potential-to-minimize-food-waste

www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/10781-economic-downturn-causes-steep-increase-in-demand-for-food-aid.html

oxfordfoodbank.org/about-us/news/visitors-from-denmark/

www.thelocal.se/20150618/first-nordic-food-bank-to-open-in-stockholm

www.eurofoodbank.eu/

For those who like links!

Food banks are one of those phenomona that started as a good idea to combine a wicked waste of food with a need to help poorer people. It has snowballed - as good ideas often do.

25%? A quarter of the population? Really?