Laetitia lives with her newborn daughter and son in a London house with four other families and an infestation of mice in the communal kitchen. They have a sparsely furnished room with a bed, a cot and a broken cupboard from which all their possessions spill out. Laetitia struggles to sleep because tenants shout through thin walls, while her four-year-old son is terrified of the mice and won’t go into the kitchen.
The gently-spoken 28-year-old is desperate to move and has been trying to save some universal credit to put down a deposit on a private rental. But Laetitia is classified as “destitute”, falling below the weekly £155 income threshold for the size of her household, and has just £10 a day to buy food, so saving is not an option.
Laetitia’s back-up plan was to skimp on food bills by relying on her local food bank in east London, but after dropping her son at nursery, the queue was around the block. She waited, but by the time she had to leave to pick up her son from nursery two hours later, she had still not reached the front — and left with nothing.
Across London, food banks report queues doubling. At a church in north London, the queue for the 10am weekly food bank starts forming in the dark at 3am, with some 550 people collecting food by closing time, according to the organisers. I watched as the line — including mothers with babies — kept growing, winding around the block. And this was in Crouch End, a relatively affluent part of Haringey.
Now Christmas is coming, but for Laetitia (not her real name) that means more stress. “I am on medication for anxiety,” she said. “Christmas brings pressure to buy things I cannot afford. My son is asking for a train set like his friends at school, but how do I explain?”
The cost of living crisis has become so entrenched that for many, Christmas is effectively cancelled. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the number of families categorised as destitute has more than doubled in the past five years. In its study, 3.8 million people — including a million children — are at severe risk of being inadequately fed, clothed, cleaned or kept warm.
There is increasing alarm at the impact this hardship is having on children as the cost of living crisis enters a second winter. That is why the Evening Standard has today combined forces with Comic Relief to launch our Winter Survival Appeal Christmas campaign, with Comic Relief pledging £500,000 to get us under way. The money will be given to charities in London and across the country that help people struggling with food insecurity as well as children’s health and well-being.
They include food redistribution charities FareShare and The Felix Project, baby banks such as Little Village, and at least another 15 transformative charities without whom our most vulnerable would be in even greater despair.
Some people might find our appeal name overly dramatic, but extreme poverty can be a matter of survival: 45 people die every day in the winter months because they don’t have enough money to heat their home.
National Energy Action, a charity that applies World Health Organisation analysis to the total excess winter deaths data published by the Office for National Statistics, warned that more than 4,000 people died last winter because of cold homes. Over the past few months, our team of reporters have uncovered stories of worrying deprivation. They include cases of:
- Parents regularly eating children’s leftovers and skipping meals.
- Toddlers forced to use one nappy for 24 hours because of extreme rationing.
- Parents watering down milk formula to last longer, putting their baby’s nutrition at risk.
- Pensioners feeling suicidal because of spiralling into unaffordable debt.
Samir Patel, CEO of Comic Relief, said: “Quality of life is collapsing for millions of people across the country , Children are going hungry, parents can’t afford the basics for their babies and extreme financial pressure is causing mental health to plummet. The cost-of-living crisis is draining families of their ability and dignity to provide for their loved ones. For many the situation has moved beyond significant hardship into life-changing poverty and we know things will get worse over winter.”
He added: “Our joint appeal will provide urgent food, essentials for babies and young children, mental health support and help for people facing the most challenging circumstances. Together we can help our chosen charities make life better for those bearing the brunt of the crisis.”
In Laetitia’s case, the charity that got her through her darkest days is Sister Circle, which we are supporting with a £50,000 grant. Based in east London, they help 350 women a year with trained volunteers called “maternity mates” who advocate for these young women and empower them during pregnancy and after the baby is born. It includes support for women who find themselves pregnant after escaping domestic violence or being trafficked.
Laetitia said: “I was 20 weeks pregnant and in a bad state, so the midwives at my hospital referred me to Sister Circle. I was allocated to Rosemary, a maternity mate who accompanied me to hospital appointments and even attended my labour. I had felt overwhelmed and stressed but Rosemary made me feel I could be strong again. She was like my second mum.”
In numbers
42% of households with three or more children struggle to feed their families
13.7million people suffering food insecurity, including 4million children
1million children sleeping on the floor or sharing a bed
6.3million households struggling in fuel poverty
14.5million people living in poverty
25% of working parents in London struggle to feed their families
Rosemary Heed, a retired midwife, said that what struck her about Laetitia was how young she was and the disgusting state of her housing. “I thought, what on earth can we do? I called her landlord. The lack of care towards a pregnant mother was shocking.”
She added: “Laetitia has gone from lacking self-esteem to someone more confident. Her first labour had been a disaster with lots of intervention and she was tense with fear, but with me she felt in control and had a natural childbirth. She is an intelligent and a wonderful mother — and importantly she can laugh at herself. With our help she will come through.”
Ella (not her real name), 33, another young mother suffering extreme poverty, lives with her four children, aged 12 years to three months, in a one-bedroom flat in an east London tower block. She said: “The oldest two sleep in a bunk in the living room and I sleep with my two-year-old son in a double bed and the baby in a cot.” Ella gets £840 universal credit a month, but after rent, energy and phone bills, she has just £6 a day left for food. She said: “For the first week after I get paid, I make it a luxury week. The next three weeks we survive on sandwiches and noodles or chicken nuggets. Once a week the kids get dessert. It’s not just food I can’t afford. I stopped paying the electricity bill because it rose from £40 to £130 a month and I am £625 in debt. I try to make life fun and hope the kids don’t notice.”
Has Ella gone hungry? “I feed them first and I have leftovers,” she said. She paused. “I hide my sacrifices from my children. My stress is through the roof.”
What does her Christmas look like? She sighed. “I can’t afford proper presents this year. I can’t even afford heating. We’ll be using hot water bottles, onesies, jumpers and blankets. My children are well behaved. They will accept it.”
Giving birth while destitute and trying to look after three children was not easy, but Ella’s saving grace was being referred to Sister Circle. She said: “They referred me to a Sister Circle maternity mate for support and I was paired with Christine who visited once a week. It was like I could finally breathe. At last, someone was there to say, ‘I’m here to listen and help.’ It was a massive game-changer for me.”
Christine Lloyd-Jones, 61, a retired social services manager, said: “When I met Ella in June, she was very low and sat with closed shoulders. I was alarmed that she wasn’t engaging. She was embarrassed and would tell me, ‘don’t go in the kitchen, it’s dirty’, but I would say, ‘I’ve seen a dirty kitchen’ and clean up. My aim was to encourage her to think beyond the doom and gloom. Over time she learned to trust me. Her children were happy but she would cry herself to sleep. We managed to help Ella and now she is a lot better.”
Sister Circle said it intends to use our grant to recruit and train more maternity volunteers to help more mothers like Laetitia and Ella. CEO Karen Wint said they aimed to double their number of volunteers to 100 to meet rising demand. “We’re a women-led charity and about women helping women. We’ve been going 40 years but the need for our help has never been greater.”
How you can help
£10 could provide a nourishing meal for a Londoner every day for a month
£20 could provide a duvet and pillow to a young person helping them sleep at night
£50 could contribute to a new school uniform for a child fleeing with a parent from an abusive relationship
£100 could provide 400 meals for families at a local community centre
£300 could pay for all that’s needed by a family expecting a baby, including new cot, mattress and pram
£1,750 could get a truck packed with enough food for 7,000 meals
In a nutshell
We have partnered with Comic Relief to launch our Winter Survival Appeal Christmas Campaign, with Comic Relief pledging £500,000 to kick off our fund. The money we raise will help fund charities in London and across the country helping people who are struggling with the cost of living crisis
To make a donation, visit comicrelief.com/wintersurvival
