Harlow Poverty Alliance host conference on cost of living crisis

Charity / Sat 2nd Jul 2022 at 06:39am

THE HARLOW Poverty Alliance held a conference in order to address the growing and immediate concerns regarding the cost of living crisis in the town.

The event was hosted by the head of Harlow Foodbank, Andy Thornton.

YH dropped in as a Q and A session was underway with Head of Rainbow Services, Sharon Summerfield and Harlow MP Robert Halfon fielding questions.

The event was held at Harlow Rugby Club who hosted the event free of charge.

9 Comments for Harlow Poverty Alliance host conference on cost of living crisis:

gary roberts

2022-07-02 09:58:17

Didn't Mr. Halfon vote to cut £20 from Universal Credit for those most in need? All this warm nonsense from Halfon is just verbal diarrhea, you would have thought he hadn't been in office for 12 years.

Andy Thornton

2022-07-02 15:01:31

Just as a footnote to the comment above from Gary Roberts, the Poverty Alliance has no political bias, but it would be fair of me to clarify that on that occasion the Tory party voted for the removal of the £20 uplift but Robert Halfon didn’t.

Nicholas Taylor

2022-07-02 16:01:56

I asked a question of Mr Halfon about the conversion of offices to flats. His response was basically to say that in principle it was a good idea and spoke of the former Pearson building. However as I understand it, 43 of these flats have no external windows and therefore rely on a mechanical system for fresh air. We in this country should allow the building of sub standard homes in this day and age. My point was, that without a change in law, the 13 former office blocks now used to provide rabbit hutch sized homes will be occupied forever more by those who have no other choice. The Council's bid for £20 million would be better spent on buying some of these former office blocks and converting them to homes for local residents who want, not have to live in them.

gary roberts

2022-07-02 18:37:06

Mr. Thornton thank you for the clarification. But did this issue arise during the Q and A session and if it did what was the response from Mr. Halfon? If it did not: why not? It was a life line for many between eating and heating and a fundamental element in your, I suspect, focus on poverty in this country in general and Harlow in particular.

Nicholas Taylor

2022-07-02 23:03:31

Typo in my earlier post, Should of course read that we should NOT allow the building of sub standard homes.

Mike

2022-07-02 23:06:14

The £20 uc payment was only ever temporary and not permanent, do some really think money grows on trees, granted there is a small percentage that really struggle with the cost of living but it isn't the figure the media would have you believe

gary roberts

2022-07-03 05:22:32

So Mike what is the percentage figure? As for money that doesn't grow on trees where does it grow and who are the beneficiaries? It must grow somewhere as the United Kingdom is one of the richest countries in the world today.

Mike

2022-07-03 08:26:07

The media always over hype stuff, take the airport situation, only 2% of flights are actually affected and many of those people were told about it several weeks in advance, the railway chaos was meant to bring the country to a halt according to the media, it didn't, living within your means has never been so true, workin less hours or not working at all because work doesn't pay, there will always be a minority that struggle no matter what any government does to help, hopefully some will change their attitude to debt after what the last 3 years has thrown at us, the government can't hold your hand forever.

Nicholas Taylor

2022-07-03 11:48:04

The best thing I took away from this event was the fact that there are a number of organisations and individuals who are trying to help people in these difficult times. However small the percentage, people do need help, the people in the film shown had clearly found themselves in a position they never thought they would be in. Harlow should be proud of these attempts to help and the fact that Andy and his team put on this event.