The SCPA Relief Fund is a dedicated pool of money that we set up in 2022, when the Cost of Living crisis first erupted. At the outset, the fund was largely financed by donations from people who received Winter Fuel Payments but who generously passed them on to us to help the disadvantaged. More recently, we have received limited local authority funding and a large grant from the Suffolk Community Foundation’s Surviving Winter Appeal. We are very grateful to the Rope Trust which has supported funding many of the emergency needs that we have identified.
The fund has been used:
- to pay monthly supermarket gift cards to those working with unmanageable debts (until end-2024);
- to support users of heating oil who have not benefited from any price capping as electricity and natural gas users have;
- to meet emergency costs, such as school uniform/shoes, furniture, white goods, car repairs and so forth where these have otherwise been unaffordable to the service user;
- to pay for statutory costs associated with debt write-offs (Debt Relief Orders and Insolvencies).
The Relief Fund is only available to people engaging with our core services (especially Debt Help) and forms an integral part of our effort to free people from poverty.