Rowan Williams and Gordon Brown have urged the government to support charities through the winter, warning that “the UK’s faith and voluntary sectors find themselves as precarious as the people they are helping”.
In a joint foreword to “A Torn Safety Net”, a report from the think tank Theos, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and former prime minister note that charitable donations are falling and many organisations – including churches which have offered to provide warm spaces over the winter – will themselves struggle to pay rising bills.
“The shocking reality is that this winter, we are likely to see charities being forced to stop feeding the hungry so they can help the starving, cut back on support to the poorly housed so they can focus on the fast-rising numbers of homeless, and give up on helping the down-at-heel because their priority has to be the destitute.”
The report by Hannah Rich describes a “perfect storm” for communities which now threatens the very institutions that many rely on during a crisis.
Research in Glasgow, Cornwall, Wolverhampton and the London borough of Newham found that rising costs threaten the financial sustainability of the pubs, scout huts and churches which are intended to serve as community hubs and “warm banks” this winter.
A new “social recession” may force many to close.
“If the effects of this are not addressed effectively,” the report warns, “it is possible that valuable institutions like churches may shut, leaving economic and social scars on the community.”
It continues: “Community cohesion, relationships and lost spiritual practices, for example, are difficult to rebuild.”
The report makes several recommendations to address this structural insecurity, including increasing the rate of gift aid from 25p to 30p in the pound and greater support for volunteers, such as through tax breaks for time spent volunteering.
It also calls for measures to make it easier for faith groups and local communities to invest in housing and other assets, on a model that would maintain affordability and protect amenities such as post offices, libraries and shops.
In their foreword, Dr Williams and Mr Brown observe “that it is the food bank, not social security, that has become our safety net, and charity, not Universal Credit, that has been the last line of defence”.
Repair of this system, they say, “is up to public as well as private vision and generosity.”
“What we are waiting to hear from the latest administration in Westminster is whether this urgency is recognised, and whether there is enough honesty about the problem and enough willingness to find a solution.”