UPFRONT How the poor live
Sketch: Barbara Millar
The church hall is in a back street in Leith. It is not so very far – measured in footsteps – from the regal parlours of Britannia, the bustling, reclaimed waterfront with Michelin-starred restaurants and smart city pads, even the offices of the Scottish Government itself. But, in every other respect, it is a very long way indeed.
The hall belongs to South Leith parish church, and provides a venue for one of Edinburgh’s five food banks, this one up and running since 2013. It operates under the Trussell Trust model, which means that agencies give out vouchers to those they know are in need, and the vouchers are exchanged for a three-day emergency supply of food. In Edinburgh, over 120 separate agencies distribute vouchers, including local authority departments, independent charities and health workers.
Arthur Mathieson, a retired insurance company manager, helps to run the N E Edinburgh food bank in Leith and explains that it is important that food banks should not create a dependency – so people are given only four vouchers to use over a six-month period. But, of course, in extremis, they can be issued with more, he says. And if people turn up on spec, without the requisite voucher, they are never turned away empty-handed – they will always be given something to eat.
Friday morning at the food bank kicks off with distributing some of the supplies to the neighbouring church of North Leith, which will be open from 10am till noon. North Leith parish church also has a cavernous crypt, providing the ideal store room. The premises belong to the church and the staff are all volunteers, so there are no overheads. Even the van used to transport the food is on hire from the City Car Club for £9 per hour and 28p per mile. The 1.5 hour round-trip will cost just £18, Arthur points out.
The van is loaded with crates containing donations of dried and tinned food – pasta, vegetables, meat products, tea, coffee, preserves, cereals, fruit, rice pudding and soup. There are also toiletries – toilet rolls, shampoo, soap, razors, tampons, nappies. And, following the handing in of over 500 Easter eggs, there is still plenty of chocolate to distribute. At North Leith church the crates are off-loaded. Here volunteers make them up into four differently-sized packages: for a single person, a couple, a small family and a large family, the latter receiving 30kg of food. All the food has to be weighed in and these amounts precisely logged. Once the packages are made up, they will be taken to other distribution points.
It is a quiet morning in North Leith. Clifton, aged 53, has turned up because he has had his benefits sanctioned. He has been told he has not been looking hard enough for work, has appealed against this ruling and is awaiting the outcome. His 101-year-old father has been in hospital and he has had to visit him regularly, which is why he couldn’t look for work, he tells me. His £86-a-week benefit has been reduced to £137 per fortnight and he has been given his food voucher from a housing association – he lives in one of their flats. ‘I am absolutely skint,’ says Clifton. ‘I have never had to use a food bank before, but it will help me get by.’
Anne-Marie is a regular at North Leith. On this occasion she has no voucher to exchange so is being given a few essentials. Her benefit payment has also been sanctioned and she is extremely angry. ‘A lot of us are genuinely looking for work but the government isn’t doing enough. I would rather be working for my own money,’ she says. ‘We are glad for food banks. Without them, people would be starving. But there shouldn’t be a need for them.’
Stewart Lowe, who helps run the food bank at North Leith, says the operation has been the most important thing their church has done in the last five years. Volunteer Rita Sutherland adds: ‘As a Christian person when you see a need, you should address it. It also makes us more relevant to society’. There is no shortage of volunteers. ‘We find it difficult to be able to use all of them on a weekly basis’, says Arthur. Neither is there ever a shortage of food. But it might not always be the sort of food that is most needed.
South Leith is currently storing eight crates of dried pasta and countless tins of soup and beans. ‘But we see a great many people who live in bed and breakfast accommodation or in hostels, with no access to a kitchen. They can’t make spaghetti Bolognese or even heat a tin of soup. They don’t even have a microwave to use – just a kettle, so we need more food that can be reconstituted with water, such as packet soups, mashed potato, Pot Noodles and instant custard. The nutritional value is not a priority. This is food to fill you up, to stop you feeling hungry.’
It is also impossible to store fresh food for any significant period. However, on Saturday evenings, the Cyrenians charity is given supplies of surplus fresh food by local supermarkets and distributes this to a number of other charities across the city. At South Leith parish church they have been operating a free breakfast service for over 20 years and anyone who turns up on a Sunday morning – and religious worship is emphatically not part of the deal – gets soup, a hot filled roll and a bag of fresh produce, which has been kept chilled overnight. The breakfast service regularly sees between 40-60 people each week.
Within Leith, a food bank operates every day, Monday-Friday, utilising the regular services of some 60 volunteers. Friday afternoons at South Leith are usually the busiest. Ella Anderson, the team leader, opens up the café area, with gingham table cloths, posies of flowers, plates of tempting biscuits and endless tea and coffee on offer until they close the doors at 5pm. ‘We usually try to meet people as they come in,’ Ella explains. ‘Some people may feel a bit nervous, embarrassed, if they haven’t been before. They don’t know what to do. If we see them hovering at the door we go out to welcome them, sit them down, bring them something to drink and then take their voucher.’
Some people want to get in and out as quickly as possible. Others are happy to spend a while chatting. There may be a number of ‘walk-ins’ – people who have heard about the food bank but don’t know that it operates on a referral basis. ‘We explain where they can go to get their vouchers,’ says Ella. ‘But we have plenty of stock and we will make up a bag to tide them over the weekend, until they can get a voucher.’
Andrew, originally from North Carolina, has turned up without a voucher. He recently had a job in a kitchen, but only lasted six weeks because the stress was too much. ‘I have ADHD,’ he says, ‘and I found the environment too much to handle’. His girlfriend is also currently looking for work and they live off £200 every two weeks, although their rent is paid directly to their landlord. ‘It’s the food element we struggle with,’ he says. The couple has a dog to feed as well, and Andrew gets given some dog biscuits along with basic supplies.
Rizzo and Natasha, with baby Ryan, have been given a voucher by their health visitor. Natasha lives with her mum, who has MS – she is her full-time carer, although she is desperate to go back to college. Rizzo had a cleaning job for a while, but lost it and is now back living with his mum too. Along with their food supply, they are given a meal planner – to give them a basic idea of the meals they can create with what they have been given. They are also given plenty of nappies, for which Natasha expresses huge gratitude. ‘They are so very expensive,’ she says.
In Leith last year – from a standing start – they distributed emergency food supplies to 1,700 people with vouchers. In figures released at the end of April, the Trussell Trust revealed that a record number of 1,084,604 people had received three days’ supply of food from its UK food banks in its 2014-15 financial year, a 19% increase over the previous year. The need shows no sign of abating. ‘We know this is a sticking plaster,’ says Arthur, ‘and we are hoping that, in a few years’ time, the situation will improve. But something big will need to change to make that happen’.
By Barbara Millar | May 2015
