Food bank demand rises over past five years

As the cold weather hits, food banks across the West Midlands are gearing up for their busiest time of year.

Figures from The Trussell Trust suggest demand for food parcels and other essential items in the West Midlands has risen by 64% over the past five years. 

Alongside more first-time clients, the charity said it had also seen more families with children and people over 65 accessing its services.

"Without these two bags I won't be eating, without the food banks, no one will be eating," said one service user, Erol Mehmet.

A food bank at St John's Church in Sparkhill, Birmingham, helps about 50 people each week, with supplies donated by supermarkets, local businesses and residents.

Julie Rollason, who is on benefits as she can no longer work as a carer due to ill health, has been using the food bank as she waits for her next payment to come in.

"To be honest with you... I didn't want to come in, because I didn't want people looking at me," she said. "As if to say 'well, what's she doing here?'

"This time I'm waiting to get paid on Tuesday so it will tide me over until Tuesday. It's not very often I do come here."

Benjamin, a pensioner, who said he was reliant on benefits, added he also used the service as he needed a "little bit of help once a month".

Trussell supports a network of food banks in the UK and said overall demand for its services in the region had risen since 2019.

But the charity said there was a small drop in usage compared to this time last year, due to other community food banks springing up in the area.

"There has been perhaps an increase in the up rate of benefits payments," Andrew Scott, from Trussell, said.

"We would like to see that increase even more to help address the level of need at our food banks, but that is a small step in the right direction."

Mr Scott added the profile of people needing help had also changed over the past five years, with more first-time users accessing services.

"We have seen more families with children having to come to food banks. We've seen an increase in over 65s also coming to food banks," he said.

Meanwhile in Shropshire, a Whitchurch food bank has fed about 1,100 people in the past six months, including about 400 children.

Its manager Alan Scutt said this number was down 12% compared with last year, but still a rise since pre-pandemic times.

"We have a lot of single young men that come to the food bank, many of which are struggling to deal with the complexities of life," said Mr Scutt.

"Most of the situations are related to low income and debt, and those two go hand-in-hand."

He added that people struggled to ask for help and were "devastated" by the fact they had to come to a food bank.

The food bank provides more than 100 families with enough food to make a Christmas dinner, as well as stock up their cupboards while their children are not at school.

"Many of them are even stopping using their cookers, because the cost of putting the oven on is too much for them, so therefore we have to adjust the sort of food that we provide," Mr Scutt added.

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