WORCESTER’s councillors will be asked to deliver a near £50,000 lifeline to tackle the cost-of-living crisis as a new report reveals more than 5,000 city children are living in poverty.
Members of the City Council’s Health and Wellbeing Committee will be asked to give the thumbs up to £46,800 from its own funds for measures which will help Worcester’s children.
Worcestershire has been allocated £7.9million from the Department of Work and Pensions Household Support Fund to help people deal with the cost-of-living crisis. Worcester City Council is expected to receive £353,686 of that money over the 2023-24 financial year, starting in April.
The committee will be asked to back the continuation of a range of projects which helped 1,358 families to cope with cost-of-living challenges between April 2022 and January 2023.
These include a £100,000 grant to Worcester Foodbank; £106,000 in emergency support for single-person households to pay food and energy bills; and £78,000 for meal vouchers for pre-school children and college students during school holidays.
Other steps include the use of £60,000 to pay for accommodation deposits for homeless residents, and grants to help cover the rent of people over 65 who are struggling to pay their energy bills.
The £46,800 would be used to pay for children’s clothing, including school uniforms, shoes, beds and bedding, and also to support the Action for Children charity in providing emergency support to families.
Coun Lynn Denham, chair of the Health and Wellbeing Committee, said: “The cost-of-living crisis is continuing to have an impact in Worcester and many families are still struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table.
“These measures will provide important and much-needed support for local residents and I hope the Committee will support these proposals.”
The Observer reported last month on the desperate pleas Christopher Whitehead Language College and Sixth Form Neil Morris who revealed hungry pupils were stealing sandwiches from a supermarket as the city’s schools battle to stem the rising tide of poverty caused by the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.
And the stark situation has been highlighted by a new report from Action for Children which says 5,433 children were living in child poverty in 2020/21.
That’s 30.3 per cent or nine children in a class of 30 in Worcester’s schools living in poverty in figures which have broadly remained the same over the past decade.
Some 18 per cent of Worcester’s pupils receive free school meals according to the report while the number of foodbank parcels issued rose some 43 per cent compared to before the pandemic.
A total of 37,469 city households are in fuel poverty according to the figures.
Visit www.actionforchildren.uk/childhardship to open the tool and see the reality of child poverty and hardship across the region.
