Teesside warm spaces preparing for more elderly visitors this winter
MPs voted to cut the winter fuel allowance yesterday
Charities and organisations in Teesside say they are preparing for more elderly people visiting their warm spaces in the coming months.
It comes as MPs voted to cut the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners except for the country's poorest.
Emma Dacey is from Hope Church East Cleveland which is based in Loftus and she said: "It's a bit of stigma around warm spaces. I think that warm spaces that are just put on specifically as a warm space, I think some people do, we found, avoided using them because they felt like some sort of embarrassment that they couldn't afford to put their heating on.
"What we found was if we made it into this social community gathering, the people who needed it for the warmth came because that sort of stigma and barrier was reduced. There's nothing worse is there when you've worked hard all of your life and then you've got to say 'well actually, I need to come here because I can't afford my energy bills.'
"We're certainly expecting to be busier this winter. we're expecting to need to support a lot of our elderly and vulnerable individuals a lot more, especially households where it's a single household and also being able to support them with finding access to other things.
"We've found last year that a lot of pensioners didn't realise they were eligible for pension credit for example, which would obviously still unlock their winter fuel payments, so for us, it's about getting to know people, it's about having those conversations and it's being able to point people into the right direction. It's about equipping our volunteers to be able to say 'look, do you know about this? Do you know about that?'
"A lot of younger people are really good at swapping around their energy providers because they're quite tech savvy, and elderly people have often been with the same provider for years and years and years and they're not necessarily on the best energy deals, so having some of our younger volunteers with their mobile phone or a laptop, being able to show them how they can save money on their bills is also another thing.
"For us, it's about offering as a church a wider package of support; whether that's help with mental health referrals, whether that's energy referrals or all sorts of other things. I think that's something warm spaces could really offer to people this winter, more than just 'the brew's really nice' but beyond a cup of tea is something that people could really offer."