SuffolkNews visited Gatehouse’s community café, in Bury St Edmunds, to speak to people about the rising cost of living
Not only is the cost-of-living crisis still very much with us, but charities are concerned it is going to get worse.
In January, inflation hit three per cent, with food staples such as meat, eggs and butter all more expensive than a year ago. And with energy, water and Council Tax bills set to rise soon – as well as increased employment costs – charities are bracing themselves for supporting even more people, as well as keeping their own heads above financial water.
Against this backdrop, I visited Gatehouse charity’s community café, in Dettingen Way, Bury St Edmunds, to find out how people were coping.
The café, which is open on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, offers free hot/cold drinks and food to the community and was described as a ‘lifeline’ by a number of people I met.
They didn’t want to have their names included in the piece, but they spoke freely about their own situations. Not all said they were struggling financially, but for some, money is tight.
One man, 57, had been in work, but was now too ill to work and was not of pension age.
Speaking of his financial struggles, he said: “I’m just one of many people. There’s a lot of men living on our own struggling to live. And Bury is not a cheap town to live in.
“I come down here because there’s good people and I get something to eat and a coffee.
“For me, it gets me out of my home and into a warm space and I can take my medication and get something to eat and not feel bad. For me, this is a lifeline.”
When asked if he could see things getting better over the next five years, he said ‘absolutely not’ and mentioned how young people could not afford to buy a house.
“In the 1960s/70s you were a postman, whatever, you could pay for a house, your kids go to college and they would have got grants. Now a person, say aged 25, there’s no way they can buy a house.”
He spoke of a friend who had two jobs and could not afford a mortgage. He said some people were living in their vans in Bury.
“There’s a lot of poverty, but you just don’t see it,” he said. “People might have nice phones – a £1,000 iPhone – but they don’t put food on the table for their kids at night.”
A former groundsman, 66, said he was ‘right on the borderline’ of being able to cover his outgoings.
“I cannot go on these big expensive holidays. I have to watch all the while what goes out. It’s constant,” he said.
“There’s no luxuries for me. It’s just getting the basics and doing what I can. If you shop around and go to car boots you can get things cheaper. To be honest, the last 20/30 years I haven’t gone to a proper store and bought a jacket. Everything I have bought is second-hand.”
While he believes the cost of living would only get worse, he said for him ‘it’s not a struggle’ currently, but it was a worry. “You will never become a millionaire,” he added.
An 85-year-old pensioner sitting with them, who goes to the café for the social aspect, said: “They give you a pension rise then take it off you.”
However, despite their complaints, the three men, from the Bury area, said they were all ‘pretty upbeat’. “I look on the bright side,” the 85-year-old man said.
A couple in their 80s, who moved back to the UK in 2018 after living abroad, said they were able to manage and were careful with money. For them, the café was a lifeline socially, not financially.
“We have always been savers. Yes, it digs into your savings, but we are okay,” said the man, who lives just outside Bury. “We have lost the fuel allowance, but so have so many others.”
They shop at Ald, and have cut out certain items from their shopping and wrap a blanket around their legs in the evening.
Bills were going up, but the man said they had managed to pay them and would keep on doing so.
“I reconcile our accounts,” he said. “We are savers and we like to hopefully save something every month.”
On another table, I spoke to two male pensioners about rising costs and making ends meet.
The 72-year-old man, who lives in Barrow, is on a state pension, which he said did cover his outgoings ‘but it’s getting tighter’.
Both men were of the opinion that there needed to be more people of working age in work.
“I have saved all my life and never been on the dole and other people just sit there and don’t go to work and just moan because they don’t get enough to cover things,” said the other man, aged 85. “If you spend more than you earn, you get into trouble.”
The community café launched in January 2023 as a ‘warm space’ initiative and has carried on due to demand. It is open on the same days as Gatehouse’s homestore so people often go to both.
Lisa Osborne, community hub facilitator at Gatehouse, said the ‘well-used’ café also offered charging facilities and a computer and printing service, at 10p a print. Donations to support the café were greatly appreciated, she added.
Chatting to me about cost-of-living pressures, Gatehouse’s chief executive Amanda Bloomfield spoke of the ‘pinch effect’.
“Core costs [for the charity] are going up, more people need our services and less people are able to donate to us. All walks of life are being affected by the cost of living. It’s a really difficult time for charities and people needing to access charities,” she said.
Ms Bloomfield said most of the people who went to Gatehouse tended to be of working age, but there had been a slight increase in over-65s using the charity’s social supermarket. The social supermarket, which has reduced-price items, had more than 4,000 visitors last year.
The charity, which also runs a foodbank, gave out an average of 885 food parcels last year. This was a similar number to 2023, but had risen from 2022.
Ms Bloomfield said more and more people were going to the organisation in a more complex situation; they may have financial problems, but that also affected their mental health or physical health, while the stresses people were under could lead to relationships breaking down and drug and alcohol abuse.
Speaking of her concerns about this bleak reality, she said: “And because there are services that are having to be cut, which are those essential services to help people, the next three to five years are certainly not looking good for either the charities at the moment or the people accessing these services.”
However, she added: “Gatehouse will do everything they can to support and signpost people to the services that they require and we will use our extensive experience and knowledge.”
For more information, contact Gatehouse on 01284 703835.
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