The Joseph Rowntree foundation has published its 2023 UK Poverty Report https://www.jrf.org.uk/data which makes for grim reading especially relating to children and pensioners.
“Poverty is not simply about not having enough money or going without luxuries. It is about struggling to get through each day. About constantly making sacrifices; about living in a state of worry verging on perpetual fear, about never knowing how you will survive the week; about never having a few days away, let alone a holiday. It is about your children being haunted by the prospect of being stigmatised, humiliated and bullied. About pensioners not knowing how they can carry on living yet dreading imposing a burden on relatives when they die.… Most of those in poverty cannot help being in their situation. ” (Joseph Rowntree foundation)
No one chooses to be poor
The right to a warm home, the right to adequate nutritious food, the right to safe water and heating over winter, the right to sanitation and cleanliness. These are basic requirements for all, surely, in modern Britain and especially in the South East of England.
It is a fact that poverty, however it is defined, both results in and often stems from inequality and unfairness within our community. A simple search on Airbnb for accommodation for two adults and two children in Rye returned 298 homes. The cost of renting any of these is massively more than it is possible to earn locally.
A walk round Rye Citadel on any evening reveals a mass of housing in darkness, empty and unoccupied. Rother Housing advises those without secure housing that they must be able to pay at least £800 per month to rent a room anywhere. An impossible target for many.
Lack of welfare services
Within our local area there is no evidence that there is a group locally coordinating the operational delivery of benefits advice, homelessness support, housing quality and food and fuel poverty services. These services are crucial for struggling families, as is the awareness of front line staff, anywhere where they might be asked, to be informed about what is available so appropriate advice can be provided.
In Rye, where the proportion of local people struggling in poverty is high, relative to the overall population of Rother, the only poverty support services available are those which are provided voluntarily by motivated individuals, supported by Rye Churches Together, most notably the Baptist Church.
Population details for Rother
Rother’s population as of 2020 was 96,700 from 90,588 in 2011 (Census). Almost half live in the main urban town of Bexhill, 4,745 live in Rye, 7,125 live in Battle, with the remaining living in the rural villages and hamlets spread throughout the district.
Rother has one of the oldest populations (with a median age of 52 years). In fact, 9.24% of Rother’s population is aged 80+, almost double the national average (4.96%). Housing tenure nationally is 63.3% owner occupied; 16.7% private rented; 17.6% social rented. This compares to Rother at 73.5% owner occupied; 14% private rented; and 10.4% social rented.
Noticeably the size of the social rented sector in Rother is significantly less than that nationally, which indicates an imbalance in housing tenures locally, placing greater pressures on the private rented sector to accommodate housing need than nationally. This results in inflated rental costs.
In Rother, the percentage of adults whose current marital status is separated or divorced is significantly higher compared to England, however lone parent households are significantly lower. The percentage of the population who provide 50 or more hours per week unpaid care is significantly higher compared to the national average.
7.7% of households in Rother are in fuel poverty
Fuel poverty refers to a household unable to afford an adequate standard of warmth and pay for other energy bills to maintain their health and wellbeing. If a household has to spend more than 10% of their income on heating, they are classed as being in fuel poverty. Using the ‘Low Income High Costs’ definition of fuel poverty adopted by the government in 2013 and excluding social housing stock, overall the results show that 7.7% of households in Rother are in fuel poverty.
Rother has significantly higher levels of people with long-term health problems or a disability than seen nationally. This adds pressure to existing services and housing provision.
Rye Food Bank Services
Rye Food Bank does not just support households with food but hosts advice sessions through Hastings Advice and Representation Centre (HARC) where the majority of enquiries led to charitable applications and discretionary housing payment applications. Rye Foodbank has hosted advice services since April 2021 and have had to be versatile in their approach due to the continued pressures of COVID, so not only have HARC held face to face sessions but they have also conducted sessions through Zoom.
Welfare services provided at Rye Foodbank (every Wednesday open between 12 – 3pm) include housing advice and debt counselling. Rye Food Bank works in partnership with advisory agencies and can help with a wide range of issues. Anyone in need is welcome and all will receive as a minimum three days supply of food for each member of the household.
Food Bank phone number: 07526 349847. Website: http://ryefoodbank.com
Rye Food Bank is located in the rear hall of the Baptist Church Cinque Ports Street Rye. TN31 7AN. The Baptist Church is located between the Cinque Ports Pub and the Mahdi Lounge Indian Restaurant, just around the corner from Rye railway station. There is a small car park accessed down an entrance between the Mahdi Lounge and Rye Retreat. The pedestrian entrance to the rear hall is down the right hand side of the Baptist Church.
Image Credits: Kt bruce .
I would encourage anyone with financial difficulties and anyone advising a person in financial difficulties to visit Rother District Council’s website. There is a range of support available including housing services, council tax relief, grants towards adaptation of property for the less able and for improving insulation and heating.
Housing services include the enforcement of decent standards in private rented accommodation.
https://www.rother.gov.uk/contact-us/contact-us-benefits-grants-and-funding/
https://www.rother.gov.uk/environmental-health/private-rented-housing/cold-homes-and-fuel-poverty/
If you are a landlord there is a very useful tenant finder scheme where Rother takes much of the financial risk of letting to less well off tenants –
https://www.rother.gov.uk/housing/rother-tenant-finder-scheme-incentive/
Your comments are absolutely correct. RDC do have a very comprehensive range of support. However, as was demonstrated during the Covid pandemic, many families do not have the resources to either have the equipment or access to the internet. Sadly, this is another demonstration of the level of poverty some in our communities have to deal with. Our wonderful Foodbank here in Rye is engaged with various organisations to bring their services to the weekly Foodbank sessions. This includes a laptop and also a volunteer to help residents to contact RDC in Bexhill.
The reminder of the tenant finder scheme, is very helpful. Unfortunately, many locals really cannot afford the rents offered. This why Rye Town Council is engaged in sourcing and providing suitable accommodation to meet the housing needs of our residents.
Brilliant article, Mags.
One of the many things which strikes me about the Food Bank was not only how professionally run and how efficient and focussed it is, but how well it bridges the gap between local govt and charities and service providers. If you’re in need, you’re likely time poor too, but you might also be deterred by the perception that support is purveyed by remote bureaucratic institutions and is hard to access and navigate. I thought one of the many brilliant things the Food Bank did was to close that formidable gap.
Thanks for your very useful article, Mags. The most interesting statistic is that nearly 300 homes in Rye are being advertised on Airbnb right now. How many other houses and flats in the town are listed on other accommodation websites? The Citadel is in danger of becoming a ghost town haunted by seasonal visitors. If we assume an average occupancy of three people per home, then 19% of Rye accommodation is being rented by Airbnb. This figure tallies with the fact that almost a fifth of homes being sold in Rye are currently sold as second homes. The reason for all this is that Airbnb is an easy way to make a lot of money for very little effort. Accommodation here is being rented out for between £700 and £1,000 a week, in the off-season. We are now a nation of haves and have-nots, with property ownership being the divide. While RDC does what it can with limited resources, it’s not able to make much of an impact on the poverty produced by the cost-of-living crisis, economic mismanagement and so on. The pandemic and Ukraine war have played a part, but the UK suffers from huge systemic economic, political and social problems that urgently need to be addressed. If it’s not solved, there’ll be social unrest on a scale rarely seen before.