Poverty levels in County Durham are hitting worrying new levels, according to the Citizens Advice Bureau. Pauline Chambers, chief executive of Sedgefield and District CAB,who says she’s seeing levels of hardship not experienced in 21 years.
Mrs Chambers, speaking at MP Phil Wilson’s welfare surgery in Newton Aycliffe last Saturday, issued a stark warning that things will only get worse.
CAB telephone enquiries have increased by 100% in the last two months.
Requests for help expected to further increase.
People are struggling to pay for basic food and utilities.
Poverty levels are rising.
MP Phil brought a number of agencies together to help local people cope with the hard-hitting welfare reform cuts due in April. Around 50 people sought advice from social housing provider livin, Durham County Council’s Welfare Rights Service, Job Centre Plus, the Durham County Credit Union and CAB at Aycliffe Youth Centre.
Mrs Chambers said the surgeries were useful for them to engage with people who are struggling. “We’re being inundated with more and more enquiries and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to cope with that demand. As a result of that we’re more than happy to come along to these surgeries to meet clients and answer any queries they may have.
“It’s a very worrying time for people. Welfare Reform in general is causing a lot of concern. The increase in client numbers for us is steadily rising already and some have asked us for food vouchers, and I’ve never seen that in the 21 years I’ve worked for the service. We know that poverty levels are increasing, and this type of event is something CAB really needs to talk to people.”
Phil Wilson said “In County Durham, 50% of households are on benefit of some description and some of the advice they probably didn’t want to hear, because of the way the Government has drawn up this legislation, but we’ve just got to make sure we try to help as many people as possible.
One of the major issues is the bedroom tax, which is cutting people’s housing benefit if they’re deemed to have one too many bedrooms. “The answer to all of this is not to penalise people but to build more houses. There are 1,600 households affected by the bedroom tax, but there are only 204 one-bedroom properties. A lot of people are going to be affected by this and I think it’s a really spiteful bit of legislation.”
