A charity supporting families in poverty throughout the North East has told of the everyday challenges families face to make ends meet.
New research published today by the North East Child Poverty Commission says almost two in five children in the North East (38 per cent) are living in poverty, rising to almost half – 47 per cent – of North East children living in a household with an under five.
It is this worrying statistic - the highest rates of any UK nation or region – which it says has created ‘a growing chasm’ between Government commitments on levelling up and child poverty in the North East.
For the East Durham trust, based in Peterlee, volunteers have seen an increase in people calling in for support with their household bills, energy allowances and food supplies.
The shocking data, however, is sadly no surprise to the charity’s chief executive officer Graham Easterlow. “There is nothing in this that is unexpected and from our perspective this isn’t anything new,” he said, but added that the figures made for shocking reading.
Read more: Call for support as North East has highest UK poverty levels
Now, as increasingly more families turn to community organisations for help, he has seen a worrying shift in who is using the service. Staff have told of helping out hero nurses and emergency service workers seeking help alongside their intensive jobs.
He said: “The current situation is allowing us to see a large amount of support in households where both parents are working. Parents are not just tipping over the edge once or twice it’s continuously happening.
“We have been around long enough to have seen numerous authorities and regimes in charge and it speaks volumes that people are beginning to think foodbanks are the norm of society – but they’re not.
“We will continue as an organisation to meet the symptomatic effect of deep-rooted poverty. But this cannot be seen as the norm. There’s a massive erosion of the social security net.”
The new report - ‘Getting the building blocks wrong: Early childhood poverty in the North East’ - explores why child poverty, and particularly early childhood poverty, has risen so steeply in the region in recent years – as well as the devastating impacts of this for families and the organisations working to support them across the North East.
Yet a solution to help prevent further increases in poverty is for the Government to increase support for the community organisations many are relying on.
Speaking of the recent support pledged by the Government, Mr Easterlow said: “It does not do enough to resource the community providers who will be meeting the tsunami of need this winter.”
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