Brighton & Hove City Council has joined four other councils across the country to lobby the government for urgent confirmation that Household Support will continue past March 31.
Together with Lambeth Council, Plymouth City Council, Southampton City Council and Bristol City Council, the council has written to Simon Hoare MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to outline the importance of the continuation of funding when the current round ends.
The Household Support Fund is a government funded scheme, introduced in winter 2021 as additional funding to support people impacted by the cost of living crisis.
The funding in Brighton & Hove was around £4.3 million in the current financial year. This, according to Brighton & Hove City Council, has been used to offer direct support to residents struggling to pay for food, energy and other essentials, as well as funding community and voluntary sector initiatives offering support through food banks, money and energy advice, and more.
Councillor Bella Sankey, Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council, said: “Hunger is now a scourge of modern Britain. We have an unprecedented number of foodbanks in Brighton & Hove and I’m told by them that demand is increasingly outstripping supply.
“The Household Support Fund has been critical to allow the council to provide emergency food vouchers and other essentials to residents on the lowest incomes.
“If the support fund is discontinued, I fear the consequences and so I am appealing to the government to reinstate it to mitigate extreme hunger and further homelessness.”
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