"People literally have one tin of beans in their cupboards" - Cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of easing in Calderdale

The Noah's Ark Centre, based in Ovenden, is now besieged on a daily basis by requests for help with the cost-of-living crisis.

Winter is round the corner and the cold, hard reality of the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite across Calderdale.

More and more people are getting sucked into the vacuum.

"It's an almost relentless flow of client after client from when I arrived in work at 7.15am to when I left at 5.15pm," Andrew says.

"I’m at home now but still working because client email and social media messages don’t stop.

"Underpinning nearly all the enquiries is the cost-of-living crisis, whether that’s a request for a food parcel, support with debt, dealing with bailiff’s or help to better manage their money."

Andrew says a worrying development of the struggle for people to make ends meet is having to battle against bailiffs as well as rising living costs.

"Where the impact is greatest is with clients who are struggling with bills or debts that have now been passed to enforcement agents (bailiffs)," Andrew says.

"This process can literally be terrifying for people and compounds the misery they are in.

"They are not just struggling with the cost-of-living crisis but now having to potentially pay hundreds of pounds in fees to the bailiff companies as well.

"Our daily workload now inevitably will include someone who is having to deal with one of the large national bailiff companies such as Jacobs, CDER, Marston's and others.

"All of these companies are making record profits: Marston's were up 50 per cent last year, but it’s profits being made often at the expense of some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

"I believe that someone in Calderdale will take their own life because of the actions of someone attempting to collect money owed. The cost-of-living crisis this year and in to 2024 will only make this worse.

"The squeeze on incomes will continue well into 2024 and will get worse if the Bank of England choose to increase interest rates again.

"That in itself will create inflationary wage pressures which will fuel inflation further."

Louise Reed, who runs Focus4Hope, a charity in Brighouse that seeks to provide support for the homeless, elderly, isolated and vulnerable, says they are also seeing an increase in demand for help.

Emergency referrals to Focus4Hope from statutory services have gone up 100 per cent since June.

"We get some very sad stories where people literally have one tin of beans in their cupboards," says Louise.

"We are seeing it affecting all demographics. We are getting more elderly and working people accessing our food club. We have a whole range of people coming in proving it really is affecting everyone.

"Since February 10 we have had 1,753 households which roughly equates to 5,000 mouths fed.

"We have seen people struggling with gas and electric already even though we were worried for the winter months to start. We are deeply concerned for when people need to put their heating on.

"Everything has increased in cost and as a charity we are trying to meet the demand and this is a daily struggle. Funding is very limited and there is limits on fundraising activities.

"The donations we used to receive from the public has declined due to everyone struggling.

"We have seen a reduction in the surplus we collect from local supermarkets due to people being savvy and shopping when items are reduced in store."

Jan Lymer, from Calder Community Cares, who work to tackle poverty, isolation and loneliness in the Upper Calder Valley, says they have seen a change in the people who are asking for support.

Last year, the group helped elderly, isolated people by delivering items such as blankets, insulated mugs, hot water bottles, single cup electric kettles and draft excluders to help them stay warm and reduce heating bills.

They also helped families to reduce costs by providing slow cookers, microwaves, electric throws and air fryers, including running cooking sessions on how to use an air fryer.

"But during this year, we have had a lot of women who have been trapped by the pension age change," says Jan, "who are just not making ends meet, and feel ashamed to reach out and admit they are not coping, and certainly don't want to attend a food drop in, as they feel it is for 'those worse off than themselves'.

"Similarly the number of young single men in their own accommodation appear to have been hard hit, with nothing left after utilities and rents have been paid to cover food and heat.

"We have also seen a big increase in working families, who previously could meet all their financial commitments, now struggling to juggle their finances and make ends meet, particularly at the end of each month."

Calder Community Cares run a 'kindness shop' selling pre-loved clothes and bric-a-brac, which Jan says is helping them take a more long-term approach at the issues the community is facing.

"We have identified three main areas of concern," Jan says.

"One is getting a food voucher quickly to those who have hit a crisis point and need a simple hand up to help them.

"These are distributed through our partners such as job centres, schools, social prescribers, gateway to care teams, Customer First etc.

"The second strand is to support smaller, ad hoc, groups who want to set up a 'local warm space' over winter so folk and their families can at least enjoy warm food, good company, and warmth once a week.

"We also have our own initiatives, such as the really impressive work of our women and toddlers group 'The Lionesses do the valley', based in Todmorden, and our 'Ukraine kindness' team, that have previously stepped up to support our older generations and are now looking at developing their skills and confidence at running market stalls to raise money for Ukraine, or to see if their business idea could support an income for themselves whilst in the UK.

"The third stand is to support the local food drop-in centres in our area to make sure they have the stock to fill much needed emergency food support, and to support any group that wishes to consider setting up a local social supermarket."

Andrew says his clients at Noah's Ark are being mostly affected by rents and food price inflation.

"The cost of rents in the private housing sector have risen massively," he says.

"There is a national housing crisis which the Bank of England’s interest rate policy is only making worse.

"We’ve been working with Panorama on a piece due to be on air in November about this issue. A huge number of private landlords have buy to let mortgages on their rental properties and many have seen their mortgage payments more than double over the last 12 months.

"Understandably many are being forced to increase rents.

"What hasn’t increased though is local housing allowance (LHA): currently LHA for a three-bed house is £523.55 per month but rents for three-bed private houses are in the range £700 to £900 per month.

"That’s a huge shortfall. Higher rents are probably here to stay.

"Food price inflation is another significant issue for our client group but strangely it’s had a knock-on effect in our food bank.

"Food donations are so much lower than they were 12 months ago.

"Everyone is feeling the pinch and that’s reflected in a reduction in what people are able to give to charities like ours.

"My opinion around food banks are a bit contentious and I'm not overly popular for saying the things I do. But.food banks perpetuate food poverty, that's a fact.

"We've been doing some work recently to show those running food projects how to identify clients who need something more than just a food parcel. It's been a real eye-opener for them.

"One, Focus4Hope, invited us to talk to their users. Of the 36 we engaged with, 21 were using the food bank because they were in debt and losing up to 25 per cent of their income to pay debts. They needed money advice."

When asked what he felt was the answer to the cost-of-living crisis, Andrew said: "Nationally I think the Bank of England should rethink its interest policy and gain a better understanding of how it’s fuelling the housing crisis and the effects it’s having on already struggling households.

"The rate of LHA needs increasing to reflect current market rents, it’s way out of sync with them.

"The use of bailiffs needs a radical overhaul. There is a huge social cost to them being used and it needs rethinking before someone takes their own life."Hate for this to sound like I’m banging a drum for more money for Noah’s Ark, but the value of money/debt advice alongside financial capability training is hugely underestimated.

"For families, projects like ours are the number one way they will survive the cost-of-living crisis. Our holistic support is helping people become debt free, become more financially and emotionally resilient and actually better citizens because we get them paying their bills."