Money might not buy you happiness but poverty brings misery and suffering

Ed Stubbs

Go back to 2022 and the term “cost of living crisis” was everywhere. Newspapers were talking about it, and it dominated much of the discourse in both the UK Parliament and our own Senedd.

Then it stopped, which is odd when you think about it—because for most households in Wales and across the UK, the cost of living crisis remains.

Yes, inflation is not as high as it was, but those high prices are now baked in, and living standards are clearly not what they were.

In fact, on many indicators, living standards have been falling for some considerable time.

That is why I’ve agreed with Nation Cymru to write a monthly column focusing on the continued cost of living crisis, poverty, and its impact on the lives of so many Welsh people.

I’m doing this because I want to play my small part in bringing it back to the forefront of our national conversation. The impact on everyone who is struggling is profound—whether it’s debt, food poverty, homelessness, or simply life being harder. It brings with it stress and trauma that scars people and their children.

We are all well aware of the impact of child poverty on life chances, but it’s not talked about enough—and I, along with many others, want to change that.

There’s a commonly used phrase that “money doesn’t buy you happiness.” Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but I do know that poverty brings misery and suffering.

I chair an amazing charity called Splott Community Volunteers. We were founded ten years ago by three incredible people: Trisha Mardon, Fred Bullard, and Angela Bullard.

They started by putting on a weekly breakfast club—just a couple of pounds for a cooked breakfast and a big bag of food to take away. In the last ten years, we’ve grown beyond what they might have considered possible. We now have our own premises, over 40 dedicated volunteers and a team of passionate staff led by the woman I affectionately call the “Splott Whirlwind,” Lynne Thomas.

We still run the breakfast club every Thursday—this during October half-term week we supported over 100 adults and around forty children—but we have extended our services to meet the needs of our community and now have a pet food bank and a period dignity stand, a Worry Club to help people when they don’t know where to turn, digital skills sessions to make sure that the digital divide doesn’t exclude or disadvantage people when services move online only, and hold a range of social activities with a food element to help people stay connected and engaged, as loneliness and isolation are at endemic levels.

Challenge

It’s hard—not just sourcing the food, but meeting the challenge of the sheer amount of help needed – and we’re not even the only food poverty charity in the area.

Tremorfa Pantry does similar and amazing work, and some schools run their own food banks. We also have a Trussell Trust food bank in Splott. This is far from unique—areas across the country have this kind of provision: an army of mainly volunteers supporting their neighbours.

I did an interview for ITV from the breakfast club in January 2023, and I said, “We can’t do another winter like the last one.” It was heartbreaking to me at the time. I was wrong—we could, and we did, because we had to.

I don’t want to give you the impression that it’s a miserable place—it’s not. It’s full of joy and wonderful people, both our service users and our volunteers. I’ve just signed the lease on our new charity shop, and I’m excited about how we can do more.

In Wales and across the UK, an army of charities, pantries, and food banks are the safety net for millions—and many of those people are working. A good number of them, including us, are supported by FareShare. But it’s not sustainable, it’s not right, and it’s certainly not normal.

Benefits

I grew up in a household that, from time to time, relied on benefits. My father was unwell for much of my teenage years, and we needed to claim sickness benefit. I was on free school meals but I’d never heard of a food bank or a pantry. Yet over the last twenty years, they’ve appeared everywhere.

Things have become significantly more acute over the last five years.

We have to elevate improving living standards to the top of our national debate. It needs to be a shared mission—to lift people’s living standards and bring everyone with us. That starts by talking about it more, and that’s what I intend to do. I want to amplify the voices of the people I know who are at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis.

I don’t just want to muse about injustice, I want to tell its story through the people I meet at Splott Community Volunteers, and I’d love to hear from others who work in this area.

This country feels very chaotic at the moment, but when so many can’t afford the basics, chaos comes with it.

We all, or at least most of us, want quieter times, so let’s not shy away from the challenge that the cost of living crisis presents and meet it head on instead.

Ed Stubbs is Chair of Splott Community Volunteers a charity that seeks to tackle poverty and support its local community, as well as being a Welsh Labour Councillor in Cardiff.