Cost of Living Crisis: Single parent families struggling to make ends meet
This case study was written on behalf of Old Boat Corner Community Centre. Names have been changed to protect the service user’s identity.
In our recent report, our annual Emergency Food Network survey revealed that 68% of food banks, meal providers and social supermarkets had seen a marked increase in lone parent families using their services. As well as lone parent families, 53% of service providers reported an increase in people in work needing their services.
Read our letter from the Emergency Food Network to the new Prime Minister to appeal for immediate action to help support families with the cost of living crisis.
Katy is a working single mum who has been living in Brighton for over 18 years and lived in Hollingbury for the past 6 years. She comes to The Old Boat Community Centre because it gives her the freedom to socialise with other members of the community and to get outside the house. But crucially she knows it is a safe place for her and her child to visit and get support from their many services: the community café, the pay-as-you-feel pantry and charity shop, free entertainment and events, the library and a friendly face.
Katy applied for Universal Credit a few years ago but struggled for the first six months since she was paid incorrectly and had to wait months for the mistake to be rectified, despite the fact it was not her fault. She found herself needing to borrow money just to pay her rent, which only put her further into debt and financial worries. Since then she has been trying to keep afloat by budgeting wherever she can to make the money stretch.
She also has one child who receives free school meals, which takes some pressure off of her to provide for those meals in the week. However, during the holidays she finds her energy and food bills both rocketing and causing even higher costs:
“I find all my money is going towards bills and we can’t have a day out or if we do then it has to be on the cost of something else.”
Although she does everything she can to cut back and budget, Katy still has worries for the future, “I work part time, I don’t smoke, I don’t have entertainment monthly subscriptions and I cook from scratch to save my money but still it seems not enough as I still can’t afford a car, I can’t afford to have a holiday/break every year, I can’t save money to refurbish my home.”
This situation is an all-too-common struggle across the city, with 86% of the Emergency Food Network listing the cost of living as the main reason for people needing their services and 100% reporting low income as a main reason, an increase from 91% last year.
Another worry that looms as the new term inches closer is the cost of his school uniforms, having already paid £100 for his current uniform. She asks “How many £100 are in a pay check? This is very much worrying me and pushing my anxiety to the limit.” Katy now finds herself having to find a way to budget for the extra cost when he wears them out as growing children do.
Since the beginning of the pandemic she also gets vouchers to help towards the food shop in the holidays, but she feels that the government’s support is too limited and doesn’t stretch far enough to cover the issues she faces.
Alongside the inadequate assistance from national government, we are seeing that emergency food use is changing and is now becoming an unsustainable sticking plaster for a broken system. Our report revealed that on average 63% of users of the food banks we surveyed are now using their services indefinitely, which has more than doubled from last year’s figure of 27%.
“They could make our energy bills go down, our council tax go down, our children could get free uniform or wear what they want to school, our local bus company can cut the ticket prices so we can go out more freely in the holidays.”
Despite the worry and anxiety this causes she has to look forward, “I hope our future is kinder to us than what I expect it to be, for our and our children’s sake.“
DONATE HERE: Brighton & Hove Cost of Living Crisis Campaign
