Bedroom tax, benefit reform and more changes means financial pressure on people is growing. For many in North East Lincolnshire, a local charity has become a lifeline simply in order to survive. FAYE PRESTON reports.
IMAGINE a world where a parent will go without food so their children can eat.
It may sound like something from a Victorian novel, but this is the reality in 2013 – and the reality in North East Lincolnshire.
Record numbers of people are relying on emergency food parcels to survive in our area.
Over the past year, the Grimsby charity Care, which runs the Daily Bread Food Larder, handed out an unprecedented 1,080 food parcels.
That is more than double compared to last year – a 131 per cent increase – and they fear it's going to get worse.
Poverty-struck people are turning to Care, which is short for Christian Action Resource Enterprise and is based in Hainton Avenue.
And it can be for any reason – from losing a job to being left short after an unexpected bill.
That is why the Telegraph teamed up with the organisation to launch the Ten Tonnes Of Tins campaign, providing food parcels for people desperately in need.
Now, Care has expressed its fears over the impending universal credit, which will be rolled out across the borough this October.
Combined with the impact of the "bedroom tax", the team at Care are bracing themselves for figures to rise further.
The general manager for the charity Sarah Taylor said: "I am really alarmed by the increase in the number of people needing us.
"Although it could be that more people are finding out about us, it is also because of all the benefit changes coming into place, people losing their jobs and the cost of living continuing to go up.
"The majority of people who come to us are families or single people who are on low incomes. But we will help anyone who needs us."
In 2011 Care, which has been nominated for North East Lincolnshire's Safer and Stronger Communities Award, gave 30 to 40 parcels a month, but this has rocketed to between 115 and 130 since December.
The Government's benefit reform will see one universal credit payment made once a month to one person in the family.
Sarah believes more people than ever will need support as they learn to budget.
She continued: "People may be able to manage their money, but it is really tight. If they do have some small crisis, like the washing machine breaks or the kids need new school shoes, they have to look within their budget to find the money and what they can go without.
"Often, a parent will go without food so their children can eat.
"When the universal credit starts, people are going to need more support budgeting their finances. They won't be used to it.
"It also opens up an opportunity for financial abuse. For example, if the payment goes to an alcoholic father and he blows it all on drink, where does that leave the mother and her children?
"We are very concerned about what is going to happen in the future."
Conservative MP for Cleethorpes Martin Vickers praised the work of the food bank.
Mr Vickers said: "It is a sad fact in times of austerity the demands on such services like food banks will increase – they always have.
"There is no ignoring the fact there will be losers as well as winners in any reassesment of benefits, but the whole aim of them is to make people more self-sufficient and to target those funds available to those in need.
"There will be hard decisions and I urge people to contact me or the Citizens' Advice Bureau for help and advice."
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