Volunteers provide ‘warm spaces’ for those in need in Britain

Muff Potts says there are many ways to help people get out of the cold and live in a warm public space. And the founder of the “Comrados” movement, a social movement that has opened “public lounges” in local communities across the UK since 2015, adds that the key is “to make sure they feel welcomed and not judged”. explaining: “What attracts people is that they are not a church. It’s not a charity, there’s no reform and there’s no answers to questions.”

This winter, public warm facilities, or “warm spaces,” as they’re called, are in high demand to remove any stigma. As the cold weather set in with the war in Ukraine, markets shook and energy prices soared. And while the UK’s Health Security Agency encourages people to heat homes to at least 18C, more than three million low-income households cannot afford this advice. According to an analysis by Joseph Rowntree, around 710,000 households across the UK cannot afford warm clothes, heat and food, with nearly 2.5 million households – a fifth of all low-income households – without food and heat.

With energy prices at all-time highs and energy costs nearly doubling from last year, hot spots are popping up across the country. To avoid any possible stigma, they are presented as common spaces where people can come and chat; Instead of charitable offerings for heat or food. While the main reason someone would go into a warm space or communal living room is probably for the warmth, it’s the spirit of camaraderie and conversation that keeps people there.

Britain’s poor are facing the worst winter in living memory, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote on Twitter in December. “A year ago we talked about people having to choose between heating and eating, and now a lot of people can’t afford it either,” he said. He stressed that two-thirds of the country will suffer from “energy poverty” by April, which includes 70% of retirees and 96% of single parents with two or more children.

record levels

In October, the UK raised its energy price cap, the maximum rate a supplier can charge on its tariffs, by 80% and gas prices soared to record highs in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine, together with inflation, by more than 10% and rising oil prices. Interest and rent costs are at all-time highs. Many Britons are struggling to afford basic necessities. The NEA, a charity that monitors fuel poverty and energy efficiency, estimates that there are already 6.7 million households living in fuel poverty and with utility bills approaching double what they were last winter, 2.4 Millions of people have used credit cards or borrowed money to pay for them this year.

And if a Brit is struggling to pay to heat their home, they really only have three options, says Matt Copeland, that could have a significant impact.

Research indicates that more people die at home from cold than those who die from the short- and long-term effects of alcohol, Parkinson’s disease or car accidents.

“We know families who have prepaid meters and can’t afford the extra charges at all,” Copeland says. “They go days, weeks, sometimes months without access to electricity. This is really the worst situation, but unfortunately it’s becoming more and more common.”

Temporary thoughts

However, communities can thrive where governments fail. “Public living rooms are now being created as models of warm spaces, all over the UK,” says Potts of the founder of Camrados, “after nearly 30 years of working with marginalized people. I don’t think the solution lies in government-provided civil service, because governments can come for a period of four years, and ministers can continue for some time, and their ideas are temporary and political. And what we need are ideas that last longer. And these ideas come from the communities themselves”.

As in a North Yorkshire bakery, a toy café and ‘cultural’ shop in Ipswich, a vegetarian restaurant in Tonbridge, Wales, warm spaces emerge across Britain, in every way, through an individually initiated community effort , from below, without central controller. In addition to the common rooms and churches, hotels, hairdressers and cricket clubs are open to anyone who needs some warmth, company or just a hot drink. Famous football club Manchester United also attended the event, offering the club’s stadium, ‘Old Trafford’, as a free ‘hot space’, while its restaurant, ‘Red Café’ opens its doors on Mondays and on Wednesday evenings “to help those facing the hardships of winter”.

The least efficient houses

The energy crisis is hitting household budgets harder in the UK than in any other western European country, according to an analysis by the International Monetary Fund. The difference between the cost burden for poor and wealthy households is also more disproportionate in the UK than in other countries. The reason is Britain’s heavy reliance on gas to heat homes and produce electricity at a time when the Russian war in Ukraine has led to soaring gas prices. Furthermore, the UK has the least energy efficient homes in Western Europe. Rising energy bills also mean rising costs for other goods, as shopkeepers prefer to raise their prices. These indirect effects will translate into more money being spent by British households. The IMF’s analysis looks at people reducing their energy use as prices rise.

• 710,000 households across the UK cannot afford warm clothes, heat and food.

• Research indicates that more people die at home from cold than those who die from the influence of alcohol, Parkinson’s disease or traffic accidents.

community mentality

More than half of the 355 councils in England and Wales are setting up or supporting groups to open warm spaces. In this, Brighton & Hove City Council chairman William McCafferty says: ‘What we have in Brighton & Hove is an amazing community mindset among residents, and despite the stark reality residents are facing this winter, people have come together and have really helped each other to solve the problem”. Some serious problems. Cafferty pointed to the availability of over 40 hot spaces for the public across the city of Brighton & Hove and said: ‘Without the good will, solidarity and community ambition in all of this, we would not have achieved what we have achieved.”

This nationwide response to the energy crisis is unique in terms of the amount of community effort. The effort to create warm spaces has not been spearheaded by government or local councils, nor has it been the work of a single organisation. When the need became apparent, first volunteers, then organizations and then local councils stepped in.

Private and public funds fund the Warm Spaces initiative, to ensure that the most vulnerable, especially children and the elderly, are not forced to sit in unheated homes during the winter months Many establishments offer free or reduced-price drinks and many they offer plans to organize activities for visitors who may face isolation in addition to the cold.

Camrados founder Mav Butts says his organization’s efforts are wildly popular in cities that receive little help and are often seen as hopeless. The open living rooms of Comrados, which have become so popular, tend to be places where people expect to be alone. “The Warm Spaces campaign is exactly that,” Potts says.

The British are facing a harsh winter this year. archival