FionaK |
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| What a depressing start to the day.
This morning on the radio there was an item about poverty in the UK. It dealt with families on low incomes: the working poor, not those on benefits. They can't afford food. It turns out that there are food banks in this country. It is no credit to me, but I was honestly not aware of that except in the context of "soup runs" for the homeless and destitute who often have problems with addiction and such. Those are a temporary response to a deeper problem and are very necessary: how much they are needed does vary with the economic policy at any given time: but no matter what we do there will still be a need for this and I accept that
I was not unaware that we have people who go hungry: they come to the offices I work in looking for help. I have posted about this before and how the money for that works to mask the total failure of civil society that represents. It is a huge problem and it is not being publicised nor is it being addressed: it is largely ignored. That is not an accident imo and there are various threads here touching on reasons for that.
But food banks are another turn of the spiral. When a social work department makes payments because a family is destitute it masks the failure of government and of the people to face what they do. But it is still possible to pretend that this is a service for those who are not very good at managing their money and that things are ok for the majority: no special service exists - it is part of the flexibility which takes account of human difference whether it is done by the right department or the wrong one. The way it is set up demonstrates that: both when it is located in DSS, as it should be: or in SWD's when they refuse their responsibilities. In good times there are still disasters: lost purses; unexpected bills for essential items. We keep the poor on the margins and they have no cushion: so some form of emergency service has to exist, and it always has.
With the establishment of food banks we institutionalise poverty. We are saying that this is not a thing which befalls families through disasters like the cooker packing up: we are saying that this is part of our lives now. I am shamed that I did not realise that our attitudes had changed so much: that our claim to civilisation is no longer credible at all.
Their very existence shames me. We are one of the richest countries in the world. We have vast and growing disparities in wealth, and we have chosen this? How did we fall so low?
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