Article by George, a visitor to West Cheshire Foodbank.
My journey to the Foodbank began at the local Citizens Advice Bureau. A kind volunteer behind the desk gave me a number and informed me this would be called out when it was time for my interview. Waiting here for the next hour, one fact of life becomes startlingly clear: we are all only one phone call, an interest rate rise, a divorce, a death or a slip on the pavement away from an abject poverty that will force difficult decisions on us.
Photograph: Ian Canham/Alamy
In the waiting room I spoke to a man who looked like a local
bank manager. He advised me, quite seriously, on the best way to shoplift food
‘professionally’, using silver foil inside a plastic bag which – so he said –
“doesn’t set off the shop alarms”. I found it difficult to challenge him when
he justified this on the moral premise that shoplifting food when you’re
starving can’t be wrong, especially when you consider the countless tons of
waste that supermarkets discard and families waste. Next, a man called ‘Jack’
told me how to fiddle the electrics of the meter. This sounded so complicated
that only an electrical engineer could manage it.
I marvelled at the level of ingenuity and deceit required by
these two men to make ends meet: the same levels of skill I imagine a
professional accountant might need to ‘move the decimal point’ in a
labyrinthine corporate tax avoidance scheme that robs the taxpayer and the
state. The same state in which the government is driving through massive
welfare cuts as it attempts to cut the deficit: cuts that inflict most pain on
the poor.
How is it that a successful financiers accounting deception can
net him a holiday in Bermuda, while someone on
Job seekers allowance is lucky to get a loaf of bread? Why are there no
consequences for the wealthy at the same time that inhumane sanctions and
destitution await the poor?
The volunteer who interviews me at CAB is obviously
frustrated by my situation too and bombards me with statistics highlighting the
injustice seen daily here, whilst I thankfully accept my red food voucher.
Ten years ago I sacrificed a good job to go on
Carer's
Allowance and lived at home with my mother in order to keep her out of
a care home. Sadly, she passed away 2 years ago. Although I fortunately gained tenancy
of her Council house I am now unable to find a good job due to my disabilities
(
monocular vision,
arthritis,
depression) and have been subsequently burdened by the
bedroom tax. Having saved the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds in care
bills I feel it is an injustice to be punished with the bedroom tax. It feels
like a tax on my poverty.
Taxes should be progressive and not penalise the most
vulnerable people in society. In contrast, the bedroom tax is a regressive and
unworkable policy. To start with, there are simply not enough one-bedroom flats
available to people who wish to relocate. Over half the welfare bill comes from
state pensions yet over one million people over 65 in the UK have personal
assets over one million pounds. Why have the wealthiest had welfare payments
protected while the poorest are made destitute?
Our society is changing: we can no longer speak of hunger as
just a foreign phenomenon experienced in Third World
countries. Starvation is not just felt in Asia or Africa.
Appeals on TV from families with desperate faces and pleading voices used to
seem a faraway problem to me. As I set off to my local Methodist Church
with my food voucher in hand my stomach rumbled: I had not eaten for two days
and my hunger kept coming in waves.
I was pleased therefore, to hear that the nations most
senior clerics were going on a 24hr fast in sympathy. One Catholic Cardinal
called the welfare system a “disgrace”. As a Christian this was heartening news.
Very rarely do senior ecclesiastical figures comment and protest against
government policy but on hunger and welfare, there appeared to be a strong consensus.
Christ hated the self-righteousness of the Pharisees who obeyed the law yet
didn’t do anything for the sick and starving. I was pleased to see that the
leaders of the established church were choosing to follow the model Christ gave
rather than the Pharisees and that they had the courage to speak out against
government policy.
As I reached the Foodbank, a redbrick Methodist Chapel on
the High Street, I considered the justice in being so dependent on the kindness
of strangers simply to eat. Foodbanks are degrading but I’m inspired that for
all the talk of breakdown and alienation in contemporary society, people are
still willing to sacrifice money, time and effort to care with great
sensitivity and respect, for people who have literally come in off the street. As
an outsider, it was clear there was a great sense of community inside the
church.
The right has cynically exploited this selfless community
spirit to force through a huge change to the structure of our society. Foodbanks
are now doing what the state should be doing and has been doing since the
foundation of the welfare state by the Atlee government of 1945. The gradual
breakup of the welfare state and NHS is being subsidised by ordinary working
people.
Before I came to the Foodbank I went to the library and researched
the Trussell Trust, a charity originally founded to tackle child poverty in Bulgaria.
The Trussell Trust now has more than 425 foodbanks in its network and saw the
numbers of people going hungry grow by 256% in the last year with 913, 138
people visiting Foodbanks in the financial year 2013/14. One of the major
problems is zero-hour contracts. No hours from your employer can mean no food
for many. In the world’s eighth largest economy, people are starving.
The library is warm and many come here to read the paper
before signing on at the jobcentre. Signing on can be a nerve-wracking affair.
Since last December 875 000 people have had their benefits stopped, often for
the slightest misdemeanour. I spoke to a young woman in her twenties who’d had
her benefit stopped for a simple spelling mistake regarding an employment
agency she was registered with. “I don’t know what to do! How am I going to
feed my kid? I misspelt the name of an employment agency on my jobsearch form.”
Despite the unwritten rule of silence, people talk in
whispered tones about their problems with the system. A teenager told me he’d
had his benefit stopped for being five minutes late signing on. A middle-aged
man was on the verge of a breakdown: he was sanctioned because he didn’t
understand computers. Most job applications must now be submitted via email,
with attachments and for someone with no experience or support, this can be
very complicated. The computer course offered by the Jobcentre doesn't teach you how to send an email with an attachment or show you how to update a CV. It is utterly useless. Ironically, for those who are then sanctioned, there is
a section on ‘how to eat well on a budget’.
Accompanying poverty is the unwelcome spectre of mental
illness. Once on benefits a lot of people tend to become more isolated within
their community and distanced from their family if they are fortunate enough to
have one. Once their benefits are stopped, these problems compound tenfold. I know this from personal experience. I was diagnosed with clinical depression.
Walking down the stairs discussing my plight I speak to a
man who states he would rather eat dogfood than go to a Foodbank, “I’d never go
to a Foodbank. I’m too proud. Last week I bought 3 tins of dog food with my
last pound. If you mix it with a bit of tomato puree it’s not too bad.”
Depressed beyond words I aimlessly wander around the
bookshelves and pick up George
Orwells Road to Wigan Pier. I then browse the
absurd Home Office guidelines on what constitutes poverty: only being able to
afford a week long foreign holiday and a bottle of wine a week. For me,
holidays and wine are reserved for an El Dorada fantasy moment. Genuine poverty
is constantly reusing teabags, watching TV in the dark with a coat on, eating
food past it’s sell by date, having to walk 4 miles with a hole in your shoe
because you can’t afford the bus fare to sign on, buying all your clothes from
the charity shops, always watching the electricity meter, eating one low
calorie meal a day and never answering the door in case it’s a bailiff.
I’m astonished how ignorant many middle and upper middle
class people are of this poverty now endemic in the UK. Most journalists seem to follow
a well worn path in articles and programmes where, for example, rich people
subtly patronise the poor by spending a week with them. For the cosseted rich it
is a voyeuristic exercise. For the poor it seems just shy of humiliation.
“People are angry!” said a man outside the Foodbank,
summoning up the courage to go in. “Why don’t we see any riots in the streets?
If we were in Italy or Spain
there’d be riots. We are paying the price for other people mistakes”. I didn’t
disagree with him.
I’ve always been a law abiding citizen but I’ve entertained
the idea of shoplifting in order to feed myself. And I’d received enough
information to do it ‘professionally’. Is this morally permissible, if you’re
starving through no fault of your own?
I couldn’t help but compare my plight with that of a city
banker. The banks acted in a way that was unquestionably idiotic. The financial
sector lent other people’s money out for profit without properly assessing the
risk. And yet there seem to have been no consequences. Quite the reverse, taxpayers
money was used to bail them out and huge bonuses are still paid despite a track
record of incompetence.
Would a bookmaker reimburse me if I walked in and placed a bet
on a losing horse using someone else’s money? The banks have been bailed out to the tune of £133bn and if they can steal off the taxpayer, why can't I steal an orange from the market? I’d just be reclaiming what has
already been taken from me.
I receive my two bags of food and a cup of tea from a nice
lady in the Foodbank. I’m grateful for the basic items which include a packet
of pasta, tinned sausages, powdered milk and a Fray Bentos pie. It’s enough
food to last me three days. Enough to postpone my career in crime! It could be
a slippery slope after all; if I start off pinching oranges, I could end up
robbing a bank!
Academics have shown that capitalism is prone to crisis. Perhaps
next time it will affect the wealthiest and the entire greed infused edifice
of capitalism will come crumbling down like a series of dominoes as skyscraper
smashes into skyscraper.
If so, you’ll find me sat on a park bench with my stolen
orange offering some to anyone who walks by, including the ‘undeserving’ rich.
Because ‘greed is not good’.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of West Cheshire Foodbank or its employees.
