More
than 3000 charities distribute £288 million pounds in grants to individuals in
financial hardship every year. And yet these grants are little known and hard
to find.
Some give money nationally, others just to people in particular parts of the
country. Some concentrate on those in a particular job - or retired from it -
others to those with a particular medical need.
The charity Elizabeth Finn Care has held a database of them for some years and
this week launched its improved Turn2us Grants Search to help people find the
right charity to apply to.
For example a 45 year old woman with a Glasgow postcode can access 88 separate
charities which will help with living costs, electricity or gas bills, career
training, meeting an emergency, education costs and many other needs.
A 70 year old man living in Somerset can access grants from 73 different
charities. And if he had worked in insurance another five pop up. Adding
conditions such as occupation, health, religion, or family situation brings up
more charities as many operate nationally to cover particular categories of
people.
A whole range of disability and illnesses are catered for as well as twenty
religions and family circumstances such as adopted, estranged, orphaned or
pregnant.
Just about every occupation is covered in the national database, from
accountants to writers, farmers to teachers, pawnbrokers to librarians. Among
the 3000 charities there is a possibility for anyone in financial hardship to
apply.
Turn2us says that people who have used the search have gained £2400 a year in
income or more than £550 in one off grants. It also said that two out of three
of those visiting Turn2us had not known about charitable help before and a
third had been struggling financial for more than a year before finding help.
Apart from the grant search Turn2us also offers information about state
benefits and a calculator to work out entitlement. And there are other
resources to help people in need and those who work with them on the Turn2us website.
Sunday, 23 November 2014
Wednesday, 19 November 2014
WINTER BOUNTY
UPDATED 4 DECEMBER 2016
A payment of £200 appeared in my bank account last week. I'm a freelance journalist so in itself that is not so unusual. But this payment wasn't a fee for work. Nor was it a payment for something I'd sold. Nor a gift from a kind friend. Unless you count Secretary of State Damian Green MP as a friend. Because Damian's Department for Work and Pensions sent me £200 tax free this week just because I was born before 6 May 1953.
The Winter Fuel Payment was introduced by Gordon Brown in 1997. It was £20 then and was increased in successive years by Gordon and then Alistair Darling to reach £250 in winter 2008. The final £50 – technically an addition to the £200 payment – was taken away for winter 2011 by the Coalition Government. That was one of its first austerity measures and one of the very few that have affected pensioners. Since then the Winter Fuel Payment has been (ahem) frozen at £200 per household and £300 if one person in the home is at least 80 (technically born before 26 September 1936). Its purpose is to help old folk with the cost of keeping warm in the winter.
A payment of £200 appeared in my bank account last week. I'm a freelance journalist so in itself that is not so unusual. But this payment wasn't a fee for work. Nor was it a payment for something I'd sold. Nor a gift from a kind friend. Unless you count Secretary of State Damian Green MP as a friend. Because Damian's Department for Work and Pensions sent me £200 tax free this week just because I was born before 6 May 1953.
The Winter Fuel Payment was introduced by Gordon Brown in 1997. It was £20 then and was increased in successive years by Gordon and then Alistair Darling to reach £250 in winter 2008. The final £50 – technically an addition to the £200 payment – was taken away for winter 2011 by the Coalition Government. That was one of its first austerity measures and one of the very few that have affected pensioners. Since then the Winter Fuel Payment has been (ahem) frozen at £200 per household and £300 if one person in the home is at least 80 (technically born before 26 September 1936). Its purpose is to help old folk with the cost of keeping warm in the winter.
Although free
money is always nice, I don't need it. I haven't been worried, as many people are, about the cost of heating my home when it gets cold. And because it is tax (and NI) free and I am lucky enough to earn enough to pay higher rate tax it is worth the same to me as
earning £344.83. So thank you Gordon for inventing it and Damian for continuing
to pay it.
I am not
sending it back. Nor am I giving it to Age UK or any other charity which helps
people over a certain age cope with their heating bills. I prefer to
concentrate what charitable giving I do on homeless people, especially young ones. By gift-aiding
this tax free payment it will be worth £250 when it reaches the charity after Chancellor Philip Hammond kindly adds £50. In fact I will give £267 so the charity will get £334 and when I settle my self-assessment tax bill and claim higher rate tax relief it will have cost me just 25p.
So thank you Damian and Philip for giving me a bit more money to help the growing number of people left destitute by your sanctions (taking their benefit away if
they fail to jump through all the JobCentre hoops). Left unhoused by councils
whose government grants you have cut. Left paying a growing amount of their council tax even though their income is at poverty levels. Left paying a bigger and bigger share of their rent however low their income. Freezing their benefits last April, next April all the way through to 2020. And left with nothing by employers who
want them to turn up as and when there is a bit of minimum wage work to do and go
away unpaid if there is none, because your Government - like the last - has not legislated to end
zero hours contracts.
Happy
Christmas
vs2.00
4 December 2016
vs2.00
4 December 2016
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