The day after Britain was hit by an arctic blast, sending temperatures below freezing and blanketing the country in a blanket of frost, a 72-year-old man finally gained access to the telephone advice line of charity Warm and Well in Gloucestershire, in the west of England.
The man, whose name has not been released, said he had been calling and leaving voicemail messages for days at the non-profit organization, which provides advice and emergency funds to people struggling to pay their energy bills.
Teresa Hewitt, the energy consultant who answered his call, could only sympathize. “We are absolutely overwhelmed at the moment,” she told him. She was one of seven staff who answered the phones that day in early December and attempted to process 71 calls.
Across Britain, more people are going into debt and living in cold or damp homes this winter due to rising energy bills, pushing inflation in the country above 10 per cent. This sharp increase in what has been termed “fuel poverty,” where 10 percent of household income is spent on utility bills, is draining resources from charities that provide free advice, emergency funds or resources to access heat and improve homes’ energy efficiency , under pressure. With limited staff and inflation-depleted resources, these groups have been looking for more creative ways to reach vulnerable households.
Those efforts include doctors in Gloucestershire prescribing heat to patients at risk of hospitalization due to the cold. Some charities hand out blankets, thermoses and thick socks.
“The number of people struggling now is unimaginable compared to where they were even a year or so ago,” said Peter Sumby, the director of communities at the nonprofit National Energy Action.
The group estimates that 6.7 million households live in fuel poverty. And in a survey published this month by the Office for National Statistics, nearly a quarter of adults said they’ve recently struggled to keep their living rooms warm, while a third said cutting back on heating was detrimental to their lives. health or wellbeing.
Mr Sumby said his non-profit organization resorted to “cobbled together solutions to help people get through the winter”, including packs of blankets, packs of hot chocolate powder and draft-resistant items. “That is clearly a crisis response,” he said.
In the past six months, the number of calls to the advice line of the National Energy Action has tripled compared to the previous six months. The line is now at a standstill until the new year due to the “overwhelming” number of calls and a backlog in referrals. Since early September, Severn Wye, the non-profit organization that runs Warm and Well and other services in the region, has helped more than 2,600 households, 1,000 more than in the same period last year. Meanwhile, the phones keep ringing. Since April, there have been nearly 9,000 calls.
The UK government plans to spend £25bn ($30bn) this winter to curb energy rates, but the average household will still face gas and electricity bills of £2,500, or about $3,000, on average per year, double what they were a year ago. In April, the annual limit will be increased to £3,000.
At Warm and Well’s Gloucester office, Mrs Hewitt found there was little she could do for the 72-year-old man on the phone. He wanted help in getting money to improve the insulation in his house. Poor building insulation is a chronic problem in Britain, which has a reputation for having some of the draftiest houses in Europe, and progress on insulation faltered more than a decade ago. The government recently earmarked a further £1bn for insulation, but this caller was not eligible for this and older grants.
But then, almost in passing, the man revealed something disturbing: He and his wife were sitting in their living room, where it was only 17 degrees Celsius, or 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
That’s several degrees colder than the recommended temperature for people their age who spend a lot of time at home. To keep up with their increasingly expensive energy bills, the man said, they’d kept the heating low or off, put on extra layers, and piled the bed with blankets at night. Ms. Hewitt urged them to set the thermostat to 20 degrees and directed them to other help if they fell behind on their bills.
Governments across Europe are spending a lot of money protecting their populations from rising energy costs and have spent months encouraging households to take energy-saving measures, such as turning down the thermostat or taking shorter showers. Britain has also earmarked a significant amount, but only last Saturday rolled out a nationwide energy-saving advice campaign, which includes urging people to unplug appliances when not in use and to reduce settings on boilers.
By the time this campaign began, fuel poverty charities were already inundated with cries for help.
Amidst this immense pressure, a new approach is at work in Gloucestershire. This winter, some doctors will be able to prescribe heat for particularly vulnerable patients; the recipe means that they will then receive a substantial contribution to pay their energy bills.
The program is designed both to help people who are acutely struggling to heat their homes and to ease the pressure on the National Health Service, which is on the verge of collapse due to a shortage of beds and a staffing crisis by some measures. It targets financially struggling people with serious respiratory illnesses who are at risk of getting respiratory infections. Following a small pilot program last winter, the aim will be to reach 150 households this winter, with money distributed by Severn Wye and provided by the council.
“Usually I rush to people’s houses when they’re sick, thinking, ‘Oh my God, do you need to go to the hospital?'” said Dr. Hein Le Roux, one of the doctors who participated in the program. Being able to think holistically about health care and preventing people from getting sicker is “actually a luxury,” he said.
As a result of the energy crisis, not only do more people need help, but the available money also gets less far. Severn Wye was able to provide indebted and vulnerable households, such as those with children, elderly residents or people with disabilities, with several hundred pounds each to help pay their utility bills. Since April, the non-profit organization has distributed more than £360,000 to 1,459 households across three counties. In Gloucestershire, the first pot of money ran out quickly this autumn.
In early December, Suhaila Abdalla eagerly awaited the next round of funding to become available to Gloucestershire. She is one of nine Severn Wye energy lawyers who visit people’s homes. Ms. Abdalla, who speaks Arabic, Farsi and Kurdish, mainly visits refugees and asylum seekers.
On a freezing morning, Mrs Abdalla stepped into the warm home of 27-year-old Intisar Abdrhman, who came to Britain from Sudan just under two years ago. The balloons and streamers were still hanging from her son’s first birthday a few days earlier. She had waited a few weeks for Mrs. Abdalla’s visit after hearing her give energy advice at a local community center.
“I had no idea about anything” related to energy efficiency, Ms Abdrhman said in an interview, with Ms Abdalla as translator. “Everything was a surprise to me.”
“When I came here it was winter, it was very cold and I came from a very hot country,” she added. Every day, she said, she turned the radiators on full blast, not realizing how much it cost.
Lately Mrs Abdrhman and her husband have been spending around £150 a month on gas for heating and hot water, a huge sum for a compact one bedroom apartment.
During her two-hour visit, Mrs. Abdalla was a whirlwind of efficiency. She called Mrs. Abdrhman’s electricity supplier on her behalf; tried to contact the gas supplier; and while on hold, she took Mrs Abdrhman around the apartment to give energy advice: turn down the radiators, wash laundry at a lower temperature, unplug when appliances are not in use, switch on energy saving lamps.
Mrs. Abdalla could not reach the gas supplier. But before she left, she taped silver reflective plastic sheets behind the radiators, which were turned down to reflect the heat back into the room, and handed over a “warm pack” containing blankets, thick socks, and other items.
During the short walk through Gloucester city center to her second house call, Mrs Abdalla received a phone call. It was another community center with an urgent request for her to give advice to a group. They urgently needed help, the caller said. But Mrs. Abdalla’s schedule was already full. They should wait.
