Clothing banks like this one in Nottingham really sum up the scale of the poverty crisis The growth of food banks across Britain in recent years has in many ways come to define the austerity era. […]

The growth of food banks across Britain in recent years has in many ways come to define the austerity era. But it is the emergence of charities like Sharewear – a ‘clothes bank’ run in my own city of Nottingham – that really sums up the scale of the crisis: increasingly, it isn’t only a hot meal families can’t afford, but clothes for their backs.

I first met Sharewear’s founder, Louise Cooke, in 2016, two years after she started the scheme. Cooke, an ex-teacher, had seen the need when her son – a volunteer at one of the city’s food banks – told her that, as people collected food parcels, they would quietly ask if they had any clothes too.

‘I was truly shocked at the number of patients [without anything to wear.]’ The i newsletter latest news and analysis Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

When Sharewear launched it was three rails of clothes run out the back of a local church. Now, they are filling an entire building, a former Baptist church in the northeast of the city packed with piles of boxes and a dozen rows of shirts, coats, and trousers. After becoming an official charity, they have added an outreach programme so that if say, someone goes to a debt advice centre and mentions struggling to buy clothes, a worker can help them access some there and then. Even schools and the local hospital are partnered with them. “I thought I’d seen it all when it comes to clothing poverty,” Cooke says. “But I was truly shocked at the number of patients [without anything to wear.]”

The only dedicated free clothing charity

Last year, Sharewear clothed 4000 people – twice as many as the previous year. Cooke left her job as an outreach worker in December to cope with the growing numbers.

It works much like a food bank. Everyone coming in is referred by an agency – there are now almost a hundred on the books, from children’s centres, housing associations, to women’s refuges. Cooke is full of stories that show the need for the service. Disabled people who are so ill they are housebound so have to ask friends to come to collect clothes for them. Low-waged parents, their small children at their knee, coming for school uniforms and second-hand shoes.

‘Quickly, Sharewear changed their policy of not providing towels. Families told volunteers they couldn’t afford to wash’

Whilst many projects around the country provide some donated clothes, Cooke believes hers is still the only dedicated free clothing charity of its kind nationwide. Clothes, she says, aren’t given the same status as food. If you’ve only got a few quid, you’ll spend it on a bag of pasta and cheese to eat rather than a charity shop jumper to keep warm.

But at the same time, it’s so much more than a piece of material. Clean and smart clothes are a bit of dignity, a treasured alternative to the shame of smelling or sending your kids to school in a torn coat. Quickly, Sharewear changed their policy of not providing towels. Families told volunteers they couldn’t afford to wash.

A grim reality in twenty-first century Britain

It would be easy to see such families as ‘other’ – a world away from what could ever happen to our own. But a cocktail of policies such as universal credit, disability benefit cuts, combined with a lack of affordable housing means even those who would previously have been immune to such financial crisis can now find themselves unable to buy the basics. At the same time as need has increased, the emergency safety nets such as local welfare schemes and discretionary social funds have been cut or abolished entirely.

It’s charities like Sharewear that are picking up the pieces. In June, a Nottingham cinema will premier a short film, Uncovered, by Sharewear to highlight clothing poverty. Grimly, this is not a work of fiction but a reality in twenty-first century Britain.