North East and Teesside families being impacted by digital exclusion
A food bank charity says it is as much of a struggle as affording food
A charity who run foodbanks across the North East, Teesside and County Durham has been telling us how digital exclusion is impacting families struggling the most.
Anti-poverty organisation Trussell, who have the foodbanks in County Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, Walker, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Billingham, Redcar and Cleveland and more, say a sixth of people referred to their foodbanks do not have internet access.
Sophie Carre is from there and she said: "Many people who are disconnected are at real risk of social isolation and we know one in four people visiting food banks have experienced real severe isolation. Connectivity is super important and unfortunately a lot of people are going without.
"Digital exclusion really exacerbates hunger, poverty and the crisis that you're in at the moment, because it's so difficult to access help and the level of pressure and stress that that puts on someone at a time when they're really struggling is a huge extra burden.
"It's about having for the first time in history a minimum protected income for people and basing social security on what it really costs for the bare essentials."