Dundee man turns to foodbank after benefits sanction

A Dundee man has been using a foodbank for 16 months after receiving a three-year benefit sanction.

The Trussell Trust identified a man known as Paul, who has been receiving packages from the group, as someone who had worked hard his entire life.

Paul was dealt the three-year sanction after failing to adhere to the benefit requirements put in place after welfare reforms.

He became unstuck after losing his job at the Hilton Hotel when it was demolished to make way for the V&A.

Paul was sanctioned in the first instance after his job centre adviser felt he had not completed his log book correctly.

His second sanction was handed out to him as a result of being 10 minutes late to a meeting at the job centre, something he said was the result of a bus delay.

The third and final sanction, that resulted in the three-year cap on his benefits, came about after Paul was made to wait for an hour in the job centre to meet with an adviser.

He complained about this delay, which staff at the centre felt was aggressive, and his unemployment benefits were capped until 2018.

Paul said there was an initial embarrassment about being referred to a foodbank.

He said: “I was scared of people talking about me, if they had seen me at the foodbank.

“But once I got there, and I got to meet the staff, I realised that people using the service had come from the same sort of background – if not worse.

“The Trussell Trust is a great place for people to come if they need help.”

Ewan Gurr, Scotland network manager for the Trussell Trust, said all types of people were being referred.

He added: “Paul had initially been referred to the Trust by an offshoot of the Hillcrest Housing Association.

“When Paul was made unemployed, he believed he would only be out of work for a short amount of time.

“I helped set up the Dundee foodbank 11 years ago, and the people I was seeing then were working through difficulties such as substance and alcohol abuse and generally had a chaotic background.

“Now we are seeing a lot of working people coming through the doors, or people who had been made redundant and have used up all of their savings.

“Proportions of people who are referred to us are on a low income and are people who work.

“People who use the foodbank on a more regular basis are usually people who have faced benefit sanctions.”

More than 133,000 people were referred to foodbanks in 2015, according to the Trussell Trust.

Paul has been using a foodbank for 16 months.