Rachel Bower addressing the full council meeting via videolink

THE director of a boxing club in Camden Town running sessions to help build confidence has warned escalating bills and the “cost of living” crisis is leading to hygiene poverty.

Rachel Bower from the Hawley ABC (Amateur Boxing Club) in Kentish Town Road, which has series of community outreach projects, told a Town Hall debate on Monday night that the public were now well aware of how food banks were helping the hungry – but the same needed to be done to help those unable to afford everyday products such as soap and shower gel.

She said there had been an increase of people subscribing to the club’s free and subsidised sessions as more and more people struggled financially.

“We’re seeing people who are coming to the gym just so they can take shower,” she told an all member meeting of councillors.

“We’re seeing people who are coming to the gym just so they can take shower. We’ve seen people who may smell or have greasy hair.

“We can see this affecting the children’s confidence quite a lot. I think we often think of food banks at times of crisis like this, but actually, there’s real hygiene poverty at the moment as well.”

Ms Bower added: “We have been doing a number of projects to address this with the help of funding from Camden Giving.

“We’ve got one running at the moment called ‘Clean ’N’ Mean’ where we’re providing hygiene packs and this is seeing things like shampoo shower gel, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste being given out to our participants.”

Councillors heard from a series of speakers about how hard some people were finding the unprecedented squeeze, and the Town Hall held a summit with community organisations last week to try and share ideas of how to help. “We’re coupling up with other local groups, community groups and organisations so we can deliver some [bathroom products] to them as well,” said Ms Bower.

“We’re hoping that we can replicate this in the future but we do need help. First of all we need to realise it’s not just things like food banks. “There is hygiene poverty at the moment and the different ways that it can affect people because it’s not just health is things like self confidence as well and self worth. “We’d encourage local businesses to donate in date and unused products if possible.”

Finance chief Labour councillor Richard Olszewski

Camden’s finance chief Labour councillor Richard Olszewski told the meeting: “We are delivering immediate and long-term support working in partnership with our fantastic community and voluntary organisations and many of our businesses.

“We fulfilled Labour’s manifesto pledge to institute a £2million pounds cost of living crisis fund and payments of up to four payments of up to £500 pounds to help people facing severe financial crisis.”

He added: “So far, there have been 1,200 applications dispersing about £500,000 pounds.”

Cllr Olszewski said there was also a council tax support scheme helping 22,000 house­holds with their bills. But he warned that central government’s slashing of council budgets had limited what they could do.