West Sussex foodbanks the 'front line' of cost of living support

Foodbank (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The news was shared during a meeting of the Health & Wellbeing Board where members also spoke about the increasing calls for help with housing and the need for councils, charities and social care organisations to work together, as they did during the height of the pandemic.

Catherine Howe, chief executive of Adur and Worthing councils, described how district and borough councils were seeing an increase in the number of people asking for help when it came to food and housing.

She acknowledged the important work of food-bank charity the Trussell Trust, saying it was ‘very well-geared to working with the system’ – but advised board members that they needed to ‘change the way you are thinking about who is turning up at our front door’.

Looking at mutual aid food-banks and the like, which have sprung up due to a local need, Ms Howe said: “In that model we see tremendous need emerging in a way which is very difficult for us to wrestle with because it doesn’t fit into our pathways – it doesn’t fit in to the systems we have set up with something like the Trussell Trust.”

She spoke highly of the efforts of communities which had come together to help those in need and suggested their way of working was ‘scalable and supportable if we manage to resource it’.

On the issue of housing, Ms Howe told the meeting that councils were being approached by people who had never needed help before – a situation she called ‘deeply shocking’.

Other horror stories came from Helen Rice, chief executive of Age UK West Sussex, who said staff were hearing ‘hugely concerning calls’, including a rise in people talking about suicide.

Sue Livett, managing director of the Aldingbourne Trust, warned that there was still something of a stigma among those in need when it came to asking for help – a statement which suggested that the problem is even larger than feared.

Another problem raised by Ms Livett was the high turnover of social care staff – 30 per cent – and the vacancy level – 10 per cent.