‘the most needy are often the ones that don’t receive the help’ is from my experience the difficult area.

Admittedly over 20 years ago now, I was on a committee of fund raisers who raised a substantial amount of money to be used on ‘needy families’ within our community where there are a lot of families struggling. Not knowing how to identify what groups/families to support we enlisted the help of the local Salvation Army as well as a couple of people from the local council. They identified the ‘most deserving’ and we distributed funds from their recommendations.

What surprised and frustrated me was that the ‘most needy’ when you went out to visit them were well know to all the agencies and were supported by Govt schemes, local schemes, local charities and to be honest I was shocked at the possessions that they had given they were the most needy!

I soon became aware that there is a ‘line’ within our support systems. Below that line you qualify for all sorts. Get above the line, just above the line, and the picture is very very difficult. This often means those above the line can often be worse of that the least well off if you know what I mean.

The following 4 years we had the same issues trying to distribute and the money we had raised.

The other problem is why so many people are in need but that is another whole can of worms and is far from straight forward as so many do gooders will have you believe.