The number of people receiving emergency food supplies in Cambridge has nearly doubled in the past year, a Varsity investigation has revealed.

The Cambridge City Foodbank has fed 2382 residents since last April, a 93 per cent rise on the previous year. Approximately a third of those being fed are children.

The highest number of users are concentrated in an arc stretching round the north, east and south of Cambridge, in wards like Arbury, Abbet and Trumpington. By contrast, the three central and western wards of Market, Newnham and Castle, in which most colleges are located, appear relatively unaffected. 

"The figures speak for themselves. In this city, we’ve got 17% of all children living in poverty", said the Cambridge City Foodbank Co-ordinator, David Goldspink.

The Foodbank runs four distribution centres across Cambridge, which provide families and adults in crisis with enough food for three days. It forms part of the Trussell Trust charity network, which operates over 300 foodbanks nationally in partnership with local churches.

The rapid growth in foodbank activity reflects a national trend. The Trussell Trust expects to be assisting 500,000 clients by 2015, a marked increase on the 26,000 fed in 2008-9.

 

The Trussell Trust began work in 2000, when two former staff at the UN feeding programme established a Foodbank in Salisbury. The charity now provides manuals, training, support and co-ordination for a network of projects across the country like the one in Cambridge.

The organisation describes its mission as supporting church-led efforts ‘engage the whole community in providing food to local people going hungry’.

The Cambridge Foodbank was set up in 2010, on the initiative of a group of Anglican, Catholic and Free churches. I met volunteers and one of its founders, Angie Campbell, at a distribution centre to explore the rebirth of a phenomenon more commonly associated with the Victorian era.

Mild-mannered, but spirited and hard-working, Angie has overseen the charity’s expansion to a team of 45 active volunteers, with no paid staff.

Food is largely donated by a supporting network that now includes over 50 churches and schools. It is also donated by shoppers through collections and drop-off bins Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda. ‘Waitrose is trying to get in on the act as well’, Angie giggles.

"Things like baked beans and soup and pasta we’ve really got loads of," she says. "But now we’re starting to communicate to our donors to bring things like puddings, juices and pasta sauce, which people weren’t thinking of".

Shoppers keen to donate are encouraged to buy what they can afford from a Foodbank shopping list, which ensures clients have access to a varied and balanced diet.The list includes tinned fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, as well as cereal, tea,long-life juice and UHT milk.

"There’s usually the odd little treat too, like chocolate or a packet of crisps," Angie adds. She shows me some boxes of  ‘extras’ specific to Cambridge, which range from toothbrushes to hats, scarves and hot water bottles.

Local people in need are referred to the Foodbank and given a voucher for its supplies by around 70 different agencies, including social workers, doctors, schools and advisors at Jobcentre Plus and the Citizens Advice Bureau.

"‘People are generally quite relieved," Angie says of clients’ first visits. "A few people have been in tears, they’ve been upset. But generally it’s appreciation as much as anything else."

 

So why are so many people resorting to emergency food relief in the UK?

The Foodbank keeps a record of agencies’ reasons for referring clients, to allow the Trussell Trust to collect statistics on a national level. Varsity was granted access to the data for Cambridge.

Nearly half of all 2382 cases were caused by delays and changes to benefits.         

"If people have had a change in circumstances, it can take up to 6 weeks for their benefits to come in", Angie says. "So we have lots of people who literally have no income for a matter of weeks".

I asked if administrative errors were to blame. ‘No, no, that’s just the way the system works!” another volunteer pipes in, her tone one of dismay.

"It’s heart-wrenching, some of the stories people have to deal with,’ says Angie. “Last week we had a young lady whose roof had collapsed because of asbestos. The council moved her into temporary accommodation with her 3 year old son. The flat was totally empty.”

“She didn’t have any money, and her benefits weren’t coming through till the following week. There wasn’t any help, only a £60 crisis loan, but she had the deposit and bills to pay, and of course it’s not enough for her and her son to actually set up a home and everything.”

 

 

‘Low income’ was the other most common reason clients turned to the Foodbank. Over one in five clients were referred because their wages or benefits were inadequate to cover their living costs.

"For the first time ever, we have more people in poverty that are actually in working households than non-working households, and that should shock people. Even people in work are having to choose between buying food and heating their homes," co-ordinator David notes.

I spoke briefly to a support worker, Katie, picking up food for one of her out-of-work clients. She gave an insight into their bleak situation:

“One of them, I know she’s got nothing in her cupboards. And I mean nothing. I looked. Some teabags, but I don’t think she’s even got milk. She hasn’t eaten for days sometimes. She’s trying to pay bills and keep warm and she’s only on about £90 a week [benefit], and she’s still got to pay gas, electricity, water, TV license, and for her kids. From this month, even on benefits she’ll have to pay council tax”.

 

 

How far is the foodbank’s growth linked to the recession and the cuts? "I’m sure it is," Angie stresses. "People are just finding it harder and harder to make ends meet".

Recent figures show real wages fell 4.5% between 2007 and 2011, and unemployment now stands at a 16-year high. These are among the factors highlighted by the Trussell Trust, which has also pointed to the impact of benefit cuts and rising food and fuel prices.

A recent independent report suggested providing a clear-cut answer was difficult, however. It said a degree of growth was to be expected with or without the recession, noting ‘the natural rise in food output of young foodbanks as they become established, and the snowball effect resulting from the Trust’s marketing activities’.

Volunteers were less hesitant. ‘It’s definitely worse,’ says Katie, with the faces around her nodding solemnly in agreement. ‘And it will get worse, we’re all aware of that as workers. We’ll be coming here a lot more’.

She pointed to the range of reforms being implemented this month, such as real-terms cuts to all working-age benefits, the abolition of crisis loans and the bedroom tax. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests these will leave families an average of £891 worse off. ‘We’ll be busier,’ agrees Angie glumly.

Their new clients may well include middle-class families. This is already happening, Angie says. “One lady was in tears when she arrived, one who used to donate. Her husband had left her. She had young children, she had her house south of Cambridge and a mortgage to pay, and she could’t get a job. She said she was going to have to sell up.  The nice home, nice job, nice holidays, it had all disappeared.”

 

 

Politicians’ and commentators’ reactions to foodbanks has been mixed. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat Mayor of Cambridge have praised them as a grassroots initiative responding to hard times. Labour claim they are a dire reflection of the government’s handling of the economy. Little attention has been paid so far to their limitations as a way of dealing with poverty, something I look at further in my article in the Comment section.

Whatever your politics, it seems clear the problem is a deeper one than recent comments by Downing Street suggest. People are using foodbanks, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister said, because “they feel they need a bit of extra food”.

We can only hope the findings of the government’s ongoing investigation are a little more thorough.