Christians Against Poverty (CAP) is offering free budgeting help to struggling families, following the findings of a shocking study on UK poverty.
The charitable organisation, which works to help people in poverty, is training over 900 church volunteers to become ‘money coaches’ enabling them to provide budgeting advice to struggling families in their communities.
The recent study by The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that an estimated 1.8million UK households, containing 3.8million people, of which 1 million are children, were found to be living in destitution at some point in 2022.
It found that families living in extreme poverty were ‘no longer a rare occurrence’, and that the number of people living in extreme poverty has more than doubled in the last five years.
JRF defines destitution as ‘when people cannot afford to meet their most basic physical needs – to stay warm, dry, clean, and fed’.
Kiri Adams, CAP’s Social Policy Manager, said: ‘The findings from The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest report are further evidence as to why urgent government action is needed to positively change broken systems and offer more financial support to individuals and families on the lowest incomes. We fully support JRF’s calls for an Essentials Guarantee which would ensure everyone has access to a liveable income.
‘At Christians Against Poverty, we work alongside local churches to meet face-to-face with people to help them out of debt and poverty and we are seeing first-hand the devastation all these rising costs are having.
‘This all has a big mental toll and, heartbreakingly, we have seen a sharp increase, from around a third to now one in two people we help telling us they had considered, or attempted, suicide before coming to CAP for support.
‘What is inspiring is to see the response from local churches and Christians who are stepping into the gap and doing all they can to help others during this challenging time.’
Photo:
Left: Chart showing number of people living in destitution in the UK (Graphic: Guardian based on JRF statistics.
Right: Stewart McCulloch will join CAP as chief executive in January after five years at the helm of Stewardship.
