Cost-of-living crisis
'In February, the Quaker-founded Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) warned that rising energy prices will ‘devastate’ the poorest families.'
The year began with Quaker Social Action (QSA) urging people to ‘make their hearts warmer’ but by the end of 2022, our homes were colder, our food more expensive, and many people struggling to pay for food and heating.
Friends worked hard all year to sound the alarm, with Britain Yearly Meeting saying in May that the measures set out in the government’s agenda ‘were ‘nowhere near enough’. An article on the Quakers in Britain website criticised the government for failing ‘to tackle the acute crises’.
Friends, including Wandsworth Meeting and Malvern Meeting, put together information on cost-cutting for badly affected Friends. In February, the Quaker-founded Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) warned that rising energy prices will ‘devastate’ the poorest families and ‘the case for targeted support to help people on the lowest incomes could not be clearer’.
By May, QSA had launched an appeal, after reports from frontline workers that people were ‘going without food to save money for rent; disconnecting the gas to save money’; and ‘only eating food that doesn’t require cooking’. In July, Cotteridge Quakers highlighted the ‘very urgent needs’ of foodbanks, saying that, at their service, there was ‘more food going out than coming in’. Meanwhile Quakers in Scotland emphasised the importance of having transport, so people can ‘access affordable and healthy food’.
By autumn, some Meeting houses had opened as ‘warm banks’, with Friends from Exeter, Ilkley and Cheltenham setting up community spaces. Alison Mitchell, from Exeter Meeting, seemed to speak for everyone when she said: ‘We are furious that we have to do this.’
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