One of the government criticisms often levelled at street based food giving charities is that they potentially enable people to sustain themselves to live on the streets. It’s a bold claim but one that does need some consideration; it is certainly a concern of ours that we don’t simply offer food but use it as a means to engage and work towards change.
A story covered by the BBC today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15683902 headlined ‘Benefit delays forces people to use food bank, charity says’, details that about a third of people using The Trussell Trust’s free food services were suffering benefit delays. I think this starts to uncover the true complexity of dependence and reliance and how they relate to acceptability. If it weren’t for charities like the Trussell Trust the news story would be about people being left with no food at all due to benefit delays. So using the same argument as in the paragraph above are some charities enabling government to get away with not looking after some sections of society sufficiently to meet their basic needs?