‘Onslaught’ of pleas for help amid cost-of-living crisis

You see it in the lines outside the food bank at the First Assembly church on Crewe Road.

It is there in the stories from the volunteers on the Meals on Wheels food run, in the pleading emails to Acts of Random Kindness from people with nowhere else to turn.

Cayman’s charitable sector didn’t need the census to tell them that hundreds of families are suffering from ‘food insecurity’.

More than 1,000 people responded with either a ‘yes’ or a ‘not sure’ to the question from census interviewers asking if anyone in their family had gone without food for at least a day during the past month because of a lack of resources.

The number shocked some, but for front-line workers like Jennifer West, who runs Meals on Wheels, delivering 333 hot meals daily to seniors across the island, the only surprise was that it wasn’t higher.

The charity focuses on seniors, but volunteers try to help out when they see hunger in the household that spreads beyond their elderly client base.

The job gets tougher in summer when children, who get free meals at school, are at home with nothing to eat. She said Meals on Wheels had to fill the gap, so vulnerable elderly people wouldn’t give away their free meals.

“What grandparent is going to sit there and eat their own meal while their grandchild goes hungry?” she said.

Cost-of-living, not COVID, is the problem

The cost-of-living crisis, on the heels of the COVID lockdown, has seen demand for help from Cayman’s charitable sector surge.

Meals on Wheels was helping more than 500 people during the height of the lockdown. Numbers tailed off dramatically as the island reopened but have begun to increase again.

West says she also sees more people asking for help, who don’t qualify.

Volunteers and staff do their best, often digging into their own pockets to support those that don’t fall within their remit.

“If someone tells you their (Needs Assessment Unit) cheque doesn’t come for a couple of days and they have nothing for their child to eat, you do whatever you can to help,” said West.

At the Cayman Islands Food Bank, director Marie Eden sees the same patterns. The lines that finally abated as the island reopened are beginning to grow again, with wages failing to keep pace with rising food, rent and fuel costs.

The end of the tourism stipend, provided each month by government to displaced workers in the tourism sector, has also forced some families back to the non-profit sector for support.

Around 500 people now visit one of the charity’s four depots, in West Bay, Bodden Town, Prospect and George Town.

Volunteers pack bags of canned tuna, mac and cheese, flour and rice. They try to focus on low-cost foods that last.

“We wish we could do more but our own costs have gone up by around 30%,” Eden said. Rent for the warehouse has also increased. While the numbers seeking help are lower than at the height of the pandemic when businesses shut down, they are much higher than they were pre-COVID.

“It is not as high as it was when everyone was not working, but it is getting close, which is scary,” Eden said.“Things are getting worse and it is not the pandemic anymore, it is the cost of living. People are really suffering.”

Funding a challenge

The precarious recovery of the tourism industry has been checked by price rises on fuel, electricity, rent, groceries and other essentials.

The special circumstances of the pandemic at least inspired government and private-sector donors to step in and provide support. But as normalcy returns, those support networks and, to an extent, the charitable donations have tailed off.

“Right now, we are in desperate need of assistance,” said Eden. “We are stretching as far as we can but it is reaching the point where we will have to turn people away.” Tara Nielsen, of ARK, said the non-profit was facing an “onslaught of demand”.

She believes the number of people living in poverty and hunger is far higher than the census data suggests.“Some people may not fit that definition because they eat every day, but if all they are getting is a 99 cent burger, is that really food security?”

She said ARK had spent more than $15,000 in the past two weeks alone on food vouchers for families in need. “We are launching a new fundraising campaign because this is all being driven by the cost of living,” she said. “COVID is over but there are still thousands of people suffering.”

ARK supported 2,000 separate families with food and utilities in the past year.

Nielsen says the cost-of-living crisis in Cayman has driven some people to lean on charity for the first time in their lives.

She said it was not just single parents and unemployed people who needed help.

‘It hurts to see your kids cry’

One of ARK’s latest recipients, a family of five with two working parents, told how the rising cost of food and rent meant they were always short of money at the end of the month.

“It is hurtful to see your kids cry and say their belly hurts. I don’t understand how there is no support,” mum, Shanley Hurlston told the Compass.

With three children under the age of six, the escalating price of baby-food, Pampers and groceries as well as rent and gas has pushed the family’s budget beyond the limits.

Collectively the couple earn $200 too much to qualify for NAU support. But though they both have full time jobs, their household salary is not enough to support a family of five.

“Since the pandemic it has got a lot harder because everything has gone up and the salaries have stayed the same,” said her partner Jason McLean.

“We are not able to get the help that we want and we need, we just end up going back into the minus.”

Read their letter to ARK: ‘It feels like you are drowning’

How to help

Support Cayman’s non-profits at:
www.arkcayman.org
www.mealsonwheels.ky
www.caymanfoodbank.com