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This week: Of Wealthy Nations and Food Banks Edited by: Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline  
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Food banks are springing up around the UK, reflecting an increasing demand for assistance with life's basic necessities. Have people become lazy and needy, or is it a sign of worrying times that in a wealthy nation, there are adults and children going hungry?
This week's Spiritual Newsletter addresses some of the reasons why people need food banks, and why we shouldn't be ready and willing to judge the poor and vulnerable members of our societies.
kittiara |
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There is a lot of talk about food banks in the UK media. More and more people find themselves in need of assistance, and, subsequently, more and more food banks are springing up all over Britain. Opinion on this development varies. Some politicians lay the blame firmly at the feet of those in need – they should be sensible with their money, budget, prioritise. Other people think those who go to a food bank are just after a freebie. Mostly, though, society is shocked that there are food banks – why, in a supposedly wealthy country, is hunger on the rise?
First of all, let's get our facts straight. Food banks don't hand out posh food. Parcels contain tins and other durables such as rice and pasta. They can help tide people over, but they're not exactly luxuries that will attract free-loaders. Also, a parcel only contains enough food to last for three days, and a person or family is only allowed to use the service three times. Anyone can do the maths – the help doesn't last for long. Lastly, people need to be referred to food banks. They can't simply walk in and expect to be given something.
It's easy to demonize people who need charity, and that's certainly what is happening in some of the media outlets. It's part of an ongoing trend to label the unemployed, the disabled and the poor as “scroungers”, “cheats”, “breeders”, “the underclass”, and “the undeserving poor looking for handouts”, as compared to the “hard-working taxpayers who want to get on”. They often fail to recognize that a lot of people who turn to food banks are actually employed. They work in jobs that don't pay enough to pay the rent, pay their bills and put food on the table. With rising rents, rising bills, and a rise in the cost of food, and with hundreds of people applying for a single job, they're trapped in a spiral of poverty.
That doesn't mean that those who are not in work deserve the horrible labels now given them. The economic crisis has left many people unemployed, and they're increasingly targeted by a government that wants to cut cost at the expense of those who already struggle to survive. The “spare room subsidy”, more commonly known as the “bedroom tax”, means people receive less help with their rent if one of their bedrooms is considered to be spare, and the criteria are highly questionable. The aim behind this initiative was to move smaller families into smaller homes and larger families into bigger homes, but there aren't enough small homes for families to move to, which means that many have to pay up. Additionally, they now have to pay a percentage of council tax, where before they'd receive assistance. With an unemployed person under the age of 25 receiving £56.80 or $94.30 a week, and a person 25 years of age or older receiving £71.70 or $119.04, and a couple receiving £112.55 or $186.86, they are not living the high life. Out of this money has to come gas, electricity, council tax, water, telephone and Internet (an unemployed person has to have a telephone and access to the Internet), food, cleaning products, travel, and whatever else they need. A quick calculation based on averages brings me to a cost of approximately £40 or $66.61 for the basic bills of a single person per week, leaving a person under the age of 25 (and a good percentage of unemployed people are under the age of 25) £16.80 or $27.69 for food, travel and other expenses.
Unemployed people have to sign up to a specific job site and apply for a certain amount of jobs a week. They have to prove that they have done so and justify why they did not apply for certain positions. The job site in question is known to have more fake jobs posted than genuine ones – companies and individuals mining for personal data. Also, job-seekers are regularly made to apply for positions wholly unsuited to them, which is a waste of time all around. The slightest perceived infraction can lead to a sanction, and when sanctioned, their money is stopped. I have read many stories of people's money being stopped for astonishing reasons. In one such an account a mother was called to her son's school because he'd had an accident. The mother had to go to a meeting at the job center, and she called them straight away to let them know she had to pick up her child. They told her that she still had to come in. She rushed to the school, picked up her child and brought him with her to the meeting, even though she should have taken him to the doctor's office instead. She was a few minutes late. Her money was stopped.
Then there are the ill, people with mental health problems and people with physical disabilities. They are assessed by a company called Atos – a company that is no longer allowed to operate in several states of the USA, but given big government contracts in the UK. People have been declared fit for work by this company when they clearly were not. Whilst appealing, some may not receive any money for weeks on end.
These are the members of society who need food banks. They aren't criminals. They aren't lazy, or work-shy. The benefits fraud rate in the UK is less than 1 percent, yet a survey of the public revealed that because of stories in the media, many people perceive it to be much higher – as high as 30 percent, even.
Why am I sharing all this in a spiritual newsletter? The answer is simple. Society is made up of all of us. That includes you, and me, and the other readers of this newsletter. I don't know what the situation is like in the USA, or in other countries, but I know that food banks aren't exclusive to the UK. A lot of us involved in this newsletter – writing it and reading it – believe in a higher power. This higher power tells us to help those in need.
Even when we don't have a religious or spiritual faith, we have sympathy, and empathy, and several wise people have stated that a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members. I believe this to be true.
If there is a food bank near you, and you are in a position to help, perhaps you can drop off a couple of items next time you are in the neighborhood. And if you are one of those in need of assistance, I'd like to encourage you to please accept it. There is no shame attached – everyone needs a helping hand every now and then.
My biggest reason for writing this editorial is to urge people not to judge those who have fallen on hard times. Perhaps when there are jobs for everyone, jobs that pay enough for all of us to have a decent quality of life, and when there are plenty of provisions for those with mental health problems and physical disabilities who can work, too, but just need some assistance in order to do so, and when those who cannot work are fully supported, perhaps then we can look at the small amount of people who don't want to work. Even then, it's better to discover why, than cut off all support and doom them to homelessness and starvation.
Thank you for reading,
kittiara
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Spiritual: February 26, 2014 Issue [#6183]
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