Chichester foodbank campaigns to make essentials affordable for struggling families

The district’s foodbank is backing a campaign which is calling for the government to reform Universal Credit so that people can afford essentials and no longer need to use the foodbank.

The team are inviting members of the community to join them at the Assembly Rooms on North Street on Friday (September 8) between 10am to 2pm to find out more about the campaign and sign the petition.

More than 100 food banks across the UK are taking action to support an ‘Essentials Guarantee’ and calling for the basic rate of Universal Credit to cover the cost of essentials including food, household bills, and travel costs.

Joanne Kondabeka, CEO at Chichester District Foodbank said: “Here at Chichester District Foodbank we are seeing more and more people plunged deeper into poverty and coming through the doors of food banks. In the last 12 months we provided 7135 emergency food parcels to local people who couldn’t afford the essentials. 2761 of these were provided for children. These statistics are reflective of the picture across the UK as the Trussell Trust recently announced that their network – of which we’re a part – distributed almost three million emergency food parcels between April 2022 – March 2023 – the highest number on record”.

“In our food bank, 76 per cent of the people that we support are in receipt of Universal Credit, including many who will also be in work. Right now, Universal Credit is not providing enough to cover the costs of life’s essentials, such as food, household bills or travel costs”.

“The Trussell Trust estimates that to afford even these core essential costs a single person £120 a week, however the basic rate of Universal Credit is just £85 a week. This is already too low, yet people needing to use our food bank can have up to 25 per cent of that deducted to repay debts, such as advance payments and budgeting loans from the Department for Work & Pensions”.

“We’re proud of the work that we’re doing to help meet the needs of our community, but we don’t want to exist. We believe everyone should have enough money to be able to afford to buy food and other essentials.”