More than 2500 churches, faith and community groups have joined the “warm spaces initiative” to help people struggling to pay their bills this winter, according to the Joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church.
Referring to the generous response to hardship because of rising energy and living costs, the team said: “We believe in a future where everyone can afford to heat their home.” The team launched a campaign to lobby MPs to find a long-term way forward.
The Archdiocese of Liverpool has opened parish centres for people to drop in for warmth, refreshments, along with access to TV and wi-fi “and friendly company”. It has liaised with other community groups to ensure that people have somewhere to go every day during the winter months.
Among 120 warm spaces opening across Devon, locations include the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Torquay and St Boniface Catholic Church in Crediton. Churches in Lincoln include St Hugh’s Catholic Church, where parish priest Fr Edward Jarosz invites the whole community “to take advantage of the facilities that we’re able to offer”.
However, “the Catholic tradition has always insisted on justice as well as charity”, according to the latest newsletter from the Catholic Social Action Network. Its campaign on the cost of living crisis calls on the government to make urgent changes to the welfare and tax system for the benefit of the most vulnerable.
The campaign also urges the government to work with the Catholic community and all other faith groups on a vision for a poverty-free country, in line with the UN’s sustainable development goal of “no poverty”.
After the Chancellor’s Autumn statement last month, Caritas Westminster called on the government to uprate benefits immediately in line with inflation, noting that “with our churches and schools opening up warm spaces and food banks getting busier, we are extremely concerned about how people are going to get through the winter months and the financial pressures of Christmas”.
Caritas encouraged the Catholic Community in the Diocese of Westminster to join other Catholics from around the country to write to their MPs to ask for immediate action to help individuals and families over the difficult winter months ahead. Also, Catholics are invited to describe the hardship in their communities and to share what their parish and associated groups are doing to meet needs.
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