Bolton: Homeless Aid UK see increase in people seeking help

Homeless Aid UK, which is led solely by volunteers up and down the country, has seen the number of people accessing its soup kitchens more than double in recent weeks and are now appealing for support from the community.

The cost of living crisis has led many to seek help from the cause.

Homeless Aid UK's co-founder Billa Ahmed said: “We thought that with the situation at the food bank and the soup kitchen that things were getting easier for people but unfortunately this isn’t the case.

“At the end of December and at the beginning of this year, we saw that our numbers did drop a little bit which we were quite happy about but now over the last few weeks we have seen that our numbers have gone through the roof.

“We used to get some of the team members saying that since they started over a year ago that the numbers have actually doubled.

“We are seeing a lot of new faces that are actually coming and using our services at the food bank and especially at the soup kitchen and they are struggling every week.

Part of the Homeless Aid UK team at one of the soup kitchens (Image: NQ)“They were getting these cost of living payments which have now unfortunately ended but they still weren’t enough.

“There is an ongoing crisis which is continuing and plunging people into poverty and more and more people are struggling at the moment.

“We are inundated with telephone calls with people requesting and needing help, people are coming to our soup kitchen each week asking for support and help, and especially with their utility bills, it is going to get worse.

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“While a lot of people might take food from our food bank some of them cannot afford their utility bills due to the prices of gas and electric so they cannot actually cook the food, so they are having to use our soup kitchens.

“The cost of living crisis is putting more and more people into poverty and a lot of people are struggling and on this downward spiral and it is hard for them to get out of it.”

Billa said there are high numbers of people accessing the soup kitchens on a daily basis.

He said: “In Bolton alone we have got five soup kitchens which are on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we get numbers of approximately 120 that are coming to each soup kitchen even when the weather is really bad.

“Other areas that we also cover include Manchester, Liverpool, Wigan, Leigh and Glasgow – we go to these locations every day 365 days a year to support those people who are rough sleeping.”

People accessing the support at one of the soup kitchens (Image: Billa Ahmed - Homeless Aid UK)Billa said as the organisation is solely run by volunteers they need support.

He said: “We are requesting that people do support us, we are a voluntary organisation, and we are non-paid, run by volunteers across Bolton and across the UK now, we don’t get any government funding as it is all run by the community.

“So, we do request that people please donate and support Homeless Aid UK, they can do that by going to our website.”

To find out more about Homeless Aid UK, go to: https://homelessaid.co.uk/

If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at chloe.wilson@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on X @chloewjourno.