Helping people in crisis is vital, but a money first approach could help them before they get there

It wasn’t so much the proverbial rabbit from the hat as a huge sigh of relief. Last week, as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed the substance of his Autumn Statement, the much-speculated question of benefits uprating was answered.

For anyone who missed it, they’ll rise by 10.1 per cent from April 2023 – a rate that reflects September’s inflation figure. In the throes of a cost-of-living crisis, the last thing those with the least could cope with would be incomes that can’t keep pace with inflation.

So there was relief. But frustration that the uplift will not kick in for several months yet. Meanwhile, there’s winter to get through. Vulnerable people will continue having to choose between heating and eating.

When people are in crisis – hungry or broke – they’re unlikely to think beyond their immediate needs

Earlier this month, Clean Slate hosted a webinar called Money First… and the Rest Will Follow, where we were privileged to host Sabine Goodwin from Independent Food Aid Network. IFAN’s cash-first principles align with Clean Slate’s model of putting financial guidance front and centre, whenever possible before a person reaches crisis point.

When people are in crisis – hungry or broke – they’re unlikely to think beyond their immediate needs. To ask people in acute distress to think any further ahead is an ask too far. But give them some relief, the chance to decompress and take a breath, and then we might be able to get somewhere with money guidance.

Food poverty is similar and a crisis response can only do so much. As the cost of living began to spiral, the strain was always going to show first in the food aid system.

It’s not just that people who previously donated to food banks don’t always feel able to do so these days. It’s also the fact that as the poverty line has crept up towards ‘higher’ earners, crisis services are seeing an entirely new cohort in need of help. Some of these people have never struggled before and consequently have no idea how to address their problems.

The creep-up of poverty is starting to squeeze people in a way that I’ve not seen in 30 years on the front line

It’s something Robbie Davison of the social enterprise Can Cook has seen first-hand.

“We’re seeing people come through the doors now who have never been in poverty before,” he says. “Actually, they don’t know what to do with poverty. That’s a big problem. That creep-up of poverty is starting to squeeze people in a way that I’ve not seen in 30 years on the front line.”

Can Cook is a catering business, supplying fresh, nutritious, chef-designed meals to nurseries, schools and care homes. Profits are reinvested into the social side of the business – feeding people who need it when they have nowhere else to turn. A core part of the model is that people are given meals and never just the components that may or may not fit together to make something a family can sit down and eat.

“So when we connect with people who are struggling, and struggling for the first time, what they get from our service are meals that they recognise as meals,” he says.

He describes a family of five with both parents in work who had begun to struggle for the first time. Their response to the food bank offer, says Robbie, was “one of terror”. He says the family was offered some tins and a packet of spaghetti.

“In touch with us, we immediately gave them meals for five days,” he says. “Ready meals and cook-at-home meals. Right away there’s a lift and you’re starting to help people get out of the crisis, because they’re no longer hungry.

“What we’re saying is we will feed you and your family really well until you get out of the crisis,” he says. “What’s important for us is we only offer four weeks free, and then between weeks four and eight we offer £38 of food for £10 – so people have to start paying.

“And for the last four weeks we offer it for £15. We’re obviously subsidising the meals ourselves, but it gets people back into buying and enjoying good food again.”

Their taste buds have gone, and they’re definitely not cooking. I completely get why people do and don’t eat good food

The timings of the support package are well thought out. The introduction of charges fosters dignity and forms good habits. Robbie says that when he reaches people who have been in crisis for a long time they tend to have been eating bad food for a long time too.

“Their taste buds have gone, and they’re definitely not cooking,” he says. “I completely get why people do and don’t eat good food. We’ve been at this now for 15 years. We get people cooking, we introduce taste back into it as a value, and we start telling people that you’ve got to start paying for it. It reintroduces values, but it also reintroduces healthier behaviours.”

Over the years Robbie says the business has taught 17,000 people to cook. And when people are in a crisis of hunger, as far as he’s concerned the first response must be to provide them with good meals.

Similarly, the money-first approach creates the space for organisations like Clean Slate to share information. Rather than cooking skills, with Clean Slate staff it’s money skills. One of the most frequent things frontline staff hear is, “Why does nobody tell us this stuff?” 

And that’s just it. When people are informed, they don’t need to be told what to do. Armed with the right information, they can make up their own minds. Being left in the dark, like not cooking, can become normalised – but it just takes that mindset to be dismantled for people to begin to feel a sense of agency once again. And a sense that they are deserving of something better.

Viewed like this, with a clear end goal in sight, it’s obvious that government spending on money guidance is an investment in the future. Helping people in debt and financial crisis is obviously vital, but the deeper the hole, the harder this gets. Building financial resilience through money guidance is about reaching them before they fall in.

Photo: Anca Dorneanu / Pexels