Food bank opens for young people hit by benefit sanctions
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Version 0 of 1. A food bank has opened in Liverpool specifically to feed young people aged 16 to 25 who have been hit by benefit sanctions. Merseyside Youth Association (MYA) set up the service when it became clear that young people in the city, often struggling with debts, were going hungry but felt uneasy about using regular food banks. “A lot of people said they felt embarrassed to go to another food bank. They’d go to their nan’s and borrow food or go to their friend’s and say ‘can I borrow a few tins of beans?’. They’d rather rely on them than go to the food bank,” said Thomas Radcliffe, a mentor from the charity. Related: 'Conscious cruelty': Ken Loach's shock at benefit sanctions and food banks The food bank, open each Wednesday afternoon at MYA’s city centre base, is unlike many others in that young people can drop in without a referral or voucher and collect as much food as they need. It has been awarded £2,000 from Liverpool city council’s Mayor’s Hope Fund, which gives pots of funding to organisations tackling food poverty. Each client is helped to complete a form asking why they are attending, and a counsellor is available for emotional support. Although only in its second week, organisers say 36 young people have already used the service, with debt and benefit sanctions the most common reasons. On Wednesday, each user the Guardian spoke to cited sanctions as the reason they needed emergency food. Kyle Ayres, 19, said his jobseeker’s allowance has been sanctioned five times over the last nine months, and he is now in hundreds of pounds of rent arrears. “You’re constantly worried about whether or not you’re going to be able to afford to feed yourself and whatever money I do get has got to go to rent. Then it’s what I can scrape together to get a couple of tins to feed myself. This place means I can put the money on my rent, know I’ve got a roof over my head and I can still manage to feed myself and keep myself nourished and healthy,” he said. Arroun Hafiz, 22, said he has been sanctioned since May. He has a three-month old child. “I can’t buy him stuff. It’s obviously doing my head in,” he said. “My mum helps out but obviously she’s got to pay the bills as well.” The food bank came out of MYA’s talent match project, a long-term initiative helping young people into work. “We were just getting more and more hungry young people through the door,” said Gill Bainbridge, MYA’s chief executive. “That was because of the sanctions and because they basically had nowhere else to go.” Related: Why young people hate the jobcentre – or rather, the 'benefits processing centre' Research has shown that young people are disproportionately affected by benefit sanctions. YMCA England, the UK’s oldest youth charity, last year reported a rise in referrals from its services to food banks, with four-fifths of its members saying increased referrals were a direct consequence of benefit delays and sanctions. Youth and homeless charities have warned that proposed changesto housing benefit entitlement for under-21s could make the financial situation even worse for young people. Louise Ellman, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: “All praise to Merseyside Youth Association for doing this but it is an indictment of the current situation. The benefit sanctions regime is draconian and it’s very sad that this is needed.” “I think there are a large number of vulnerable young people who don’t have families to fall back on and this is the group who are disproportionately affected. They’re already struggling to make a life for themselves and they’re now being knocked back even further.” In Liverpool, food bank usage has spiralled in recent years, with The Trussell Trust’s food banks in the city having fed more than 60,000 people since 2012, 41% of them children. Despite council schemes such as working with playgroups during school holidays to feed children, the Liverpool city council cabinet member for fairness, Jane Corbett, said she feared hunger becoming a “silent killer”. Related: Food banks have become a lifeline for many, but where is the way out? | Patrick Butler She said: “That might sound a bit dramatic but it is. Children will die younger as adults and I think in a few years’ time people will say ‘this was an austerity child’, because they won’t have had the right nutrients and diet growing up, the impact on them physically, socially and emotionally in terms of their development will be very negative.” A spokesperson for the Department of Work and Pensions told the Guardian: “It is misleading to link food bank use to benefit delays and sanctions. The vast majority of benefits are paid on time and there is no robust evidence that directly links sanctions to food bank use.” But a 2014 YMCA reportestablished that young peopleaccounted for 41% of jobseeker’s allowance sanctions, despite making up only a quarter of claimants. |