Energy bills: struggling families forced to ‘seek refuge in McDonald’s’

theguardian.com:

Families struggling to cope with energy bills are seeking shelter in McDonald’s, with one charity saying hard-pressed parents and children are spending their evenings in the fast food restaurants, relying on the facilities as an emergency kitchen, bathroom and living room.

“People are buying their kids a Happy Meal for a few quid and keeping them warm inside. Then they wash and brush their teeth in the sinks and watch television for hours on the free wifi,” says Matthew Cole.

He is the chair of the trustees of the Fuel Bank Foundation, a body which tries to help families with their bills, currently ballooning amid raging inflation. The realities of life for those in financial distress are stark – parents who take their children to leisure centres to use the showers without swimming, others hunched over tea lights to heat pans. Cole’s team has tried to persuade residents not to burn furniture or wooden pallets to keep warm, for worry they will set their homes on fire, but many feel they have no choice.

Cole was originally in charge of dealing with vulnerable customers at energy supplier npower. He quickly realised that when customers had trouble paying bills they rarely turned to their energy supplier. “It’s a hidden problem – if a customer stops paying they rarely tell you why,” he says.

Instead, many of the 4.5m households using prepayment meters are “self-disconnecting” by sitting cold in the dark. The Fuel Bank Foundation is now independent, funded through a mixture of grants, public funds and industry support. It does not have its own premises, instead tying up with existing providers of foodbanks and community support such as the Trussell Trust and Citizens Advice through 350 sites around the country.

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