The cost-of-living crisis is taking its toll on everyone, but those who are already living in poverty or who are on the brink of falling into poverty, are being hit the hardest. At Sanctus, we see the impact this is having on our community. Every day that goes by, more and more people are coming to us in need of support.

To put this into perspective, in January this year we were supporting 180 different individuals each month. By April, this figure grew to 279. In May, it increased again to 302, and last month we recorded 363 different individuals who are currently using our services. This means we are now supporting more than double the amount of people we were supporting in the early part of this year. This is stretching our resources but we are determined to rise to the challenge.

We are noticing that those who would have once just needed to access our café service for food and essential items, are now needing further help from our Support Hub. We have seen a dramatic increase in individuals requesting appointments. The appointments often entail a very distressed and anxious individual coming to us with a pile of unopened or unpaid bills, sometimes on the verge of eviction with debt agencies coming to their door. This is very frightening for anyone, but when you suffer from existing mental health conditions or other challenges, this hugely exacerbates it.

The Sanctus support team are doing what they can to respond to this need, such as working to manage the debt of individuals by, for example, working with utility agencies to devise affordable payment plans. Every day we are seeing the reality of the impact of high inflation and energy price rises on those who were already on the edge of society or barely getting by month to month.

We will always work as hard as we can to help those in need, but the reality is that just as the cost-of-living crisis is impacting individuals, it is also hugely impacts charities like us. With the growing demand and our bills also increasing, we are in need of funding now more than ever. As a charity and non-statutory service, we have to find every penny we need to keep our services running, which involves a huge amount of work from a small team.

We are helping more and more people, and for us more customers does not mean more money. This is why we are appealing to the community to help us. We fully understand that everyone is struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, so we appreciate that not everyone will be in a position to give. If you can, please make a donation today to support our work and help those in the community who are struggling more than ever. We promise we will put it to good use to help others.

A small donation can go a long way. These are examples of actual spends from the last couple of months and we believe demonstrate the severe impact on people when they have no or limited funds.

£2.50 A bus ticket for a service user to make a key appointment relating to gaining accommodation.

£7.14 - Incontinence pads for a service user who had no funds to purchase and none provided post an appointment.

£10 Top up for an electric meter for a service user who had been robbed and had no light/cooking facilities.

£17.95 - Baby milk for a service users baby who had specific allergies so none of the food bank milk was suitable.

£35.97 - Self-defence spray and panic alarm and other items for a female service user who was rough sleeping.

£50 A Tesco voucher for a family fleeing domestic abuse so they could purchase food and other items when they arrived at their new destination.

£71.07 A food shop for someone in end-of-life care who had no food.

£120.10 - Items for a family (including children) fleeing domestic abuse with limited funds, given temporary accommodation but had no essential items for themselves or children.

£180 The costs to submit papers to prevent a service user from being evicted.