Food banks and dependency

Orion Edgar

Originally published in the Guardian: Comment is Free, 18th April 2014.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/18/christians-fasting-nearly-over-others-lucky

Easter Sunday brings the end of Lent, a season of fasting for Christians. But for many of Britains
poorest people, there is no end in sightas church leaders wrote in a letter to politicians this week,
there is a national crisis of hunger.

As a volunteer at my local food bank, I meet people in all kinds of need. Most arrive apologetic and
ashamed. Increasing numbers tell us that they have had welfare payments sanctioned: arriving late for
an appointment, missing a letter, or making a minor mistake with paperwork leads to claimants losing
all benefits, including housing benefit, for at least four weeks (and usually longer; six weeks seems to be
normal for missing an interview). The latest figures from the Trussell Trust show that 48% of vouchers
given in 2013-2014 were for crises caused by benefit delays or changes. A change in relationship status
(a partner moving in or out) can cause social security payments to be delayed for 6 weeks or more,
while a system stretched to its limits processes the changes. The situation is getting increasingly
desperate for many. Last month Oxfam reported that people are returning food to food banks because
they cant afford to cook it.

For some, like Paul, a forklift driver I met recently, the jobs that are offered are invariably on short-term
contracts. Working for a month and then signing on again will leave him worse off than he would have
been on benefits. Many people like Paul are living in a cycle of low-paid jobs and unemployment.
Occasional, very insecure work is the norm for people who visit food banks. The high salaries of the
elite few who benefit most from the UKs economy have continued to rise whilst the earnings of the
vast majority have stagnated in recent years.

It is not just individuals health, confidence and ability to work that are undermined, but precisely the
security of our society. Rapidly increasing demand for food parcels is driven by crises underpinned by
long-term problems of low income, indebtedness, and rising food prices. There is no evidence to
suggest that rising demand is due to an increase in supply; indeed, the Trussell Trusts latest figures
show that, whilst the numbers of Food Banks opening slows, the demand for food parcels continues to
accelerate.

The food banks primary goal is not party political, but is grounded in the churchs response to the love
of Christto meet needs in the short term by alleviating hunger, and by recognising all who come in
need of food as people made in Gods image. But feeding the hungry is by nature a political act, just as
the work of the church, and the reality of worship, is political: because, as the Church of England
(under Justin Welbys leadership) is beginning to say anew, faith is political. These brutal injustices are
making us angry, along with many of our friends of other faiths and of none.

The churches know that dependency is not of itself a bad thing. Human beings depend on one another
and on the whole created order of which they are a part. Christian faith refuses to think in terms of
scarcity (God has not created a world in which there is not enough for everyone to survive), but insists
on finitude (creation does have inherent limits): there is enough for everyones need, but not for
everyones greed. Many christians have been fasting for the last six weeks, as a way of reminding
ourselves of the truth that scarcity is a human problemthe abundance of creation cannot prevent
scarcity arising where the interests of the wealthy cannibalise all available resources while driven, like a
cancer, to never-ending growth.

Rowan Williams argued recently that the jubilee laws of ancient Israel serve to resist permanent
dependency; but they can only do this by restricting the size of the gap between the rich and the poor.
This is the true economic reality: fantastic wealth, concentrated in the hands of the few, necessarily
impoverishes many by consigning them to a fate of low-paid and insecure work. The lack of food
security for such people, and the social insecurity it entails, costs Britain dearly.

It is right that the food banks feed those who would otherwise go hungry, offering a picture of a
different kind of economy, though they can do little to address the causes of hunger. For that, a greater
transformation is needed.