To Each According to Their Need
We listen and act to meet each person's unique needs.
Need Does Not Arrive Fully Formed
It emerges through struggle, through conversation, through people testing what is possible and naming what is missing. Often, it only becomes clear once people begin acting together.
Someone comes for food and talks about rent. Someone asks for help with school uniforms and ends up talking about damp, exhaustion, fear.
What looks like one problem reveals another beneath it. This is how real conditions surface.
How Institutions Respond
Institutions prefer fixed answers. They decide in advance what people are allowed to need, then build systems to deliver just that.
Anything outside the frame is treated as confusion, dishonesty, or failure.
But life does not organize itself that neatly.
We Start From Where People Are
At Food & Solidarity, we start from where people are. We listen not just to requests, but to the reasons behind them.
We pay attention to patterns as they repeat across households, streets, workplaces. Individual problems are rarely individual for long.
From Support to Collective Action
As patterns become clearer, our response changes.
What begins as support becomes collective action.
What feels like a personal crisis is recognized as a shared condition.
Needs that appear separate are understood as connected—rent, food, debt, childcare, safety.
Working Through Contradictions
Not all needs can be met in the same way. Sometimes they pull in different directions. Sometimes resources are limited.
These tensions are real, and pretending otherwise helps no one.
The point is not to erase contradiction, but to work through it together.
When decisions are made collectively, priorities emerge from lived reality, not from theory or bureaucracy. We act, we learn from the results, and we return to the community with what we've learned—adjusting, correcting, sharpening our response.
Not Charity, Not Service Delivery
This is not charity and it is not service delivery.
It is a process.
What "To Each According to Their Need" Means
It means recognizing that need is dynamic, shaped by material conditions, and clarified through collective struggle.
What people need today may not be what they need tomorrow.
Our politics has to be flexible enough to move with that reality.
Solidarity Is Not a Fixed Answer
It is a method—tested, corrected, and rebuilt in common.
Organize Together, Meet Needs Collectively
Join members who listen to the reasons behind requests, recognize shared conditions, and act collectively to meet needs as they emerge through struggle.
Become a Member TodayFrequently Asked Questions
How does need emerge?
Need does not arrive fully formed. It emerges through struggle, through conversation, through people testing what is possible and naming what is missing. Often, it only becomes clear once people begin acting together. What looks like one problem reveals another beneath it.
How does Food & Solidarity respond to needs?
We start from where people are. We listen not just to requests, but to the reasons behind them. We pay attention to patterns as they repeat across households, streets, workplaces. What begins as support becomes collective action. What feels like a personal crisis is recognized as a shared condition.
What does "to each according to their need" mean?
It means recognizing that need is dynamic, shaped by material conditions, and clarified through collective struggle. What people need today may not be what they need tomorrow. Our politics has to be flexible enough to move with that reality.
Is this charity or service delivery?
No. This is not charity and it is not service delivery. It is a process. Solidarity is not a fixed answer—it is a method tested, corrected, and rebuilt in common based on lived reality.
37% of private renters & around 40% of social renters are in poverty after housing costs and that many households are only pushed into poverty once rent is paid.
After housing costs matter because it shows what people have left to live on, not what they earn.
Freezing Local Housing Allowance while rents rise is deepening hardship. We see this every week in the lives of our members. But increasing this allowance in a housing system without rent regulation does not solve the problem.
Sometimes change doesn't start with a big plan. It starts with people talking about what they're seeing every day, and deciding they can't ignore it anymore. That's how this campaign began.
It Started at a Members' Meeting
At a regular Food and Solidarity members' meeting, child poverty came up again. Members talked about how the two-child benefit cap was affecting families, and how immigration rules like NRPF (No Recourse to Public Funds) meant some families couldn't get help at all.
Someone suggested: what if we actually organised around this?
The UK Poverty report, published annually by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, is the authoritative analysis of poverty in the UK. Drawing on extensive data sources, it identifies who is most affected by poverty, tracks how levels have evolved over time, and examines what lies ahead. The report provides in-depth insights into overall poverty rates, deep poverty, and persistent poverty across different groups throughout the UK.
This Valentine’s Day, people across the North of England are choosing a different kind of love: comradely love. Love that looks like showing up for each other when rents rise, repairs are ignored, and eviction threats land on the doormat.
On 14 February 2026, housing groups, tenants, and people fed up with being pushed around by landlords and councils will come together in Sheffield for the Homes for Us North Grassroots Housing Gathering.
This isn’t a conference for professionals. It’s a gathering for people living in the housing crisis, and deciding to take action together, because nothing changes unless you and other affected people are directly involved.
Jan Forster estates limited recently called in administrators who downsized the company (reducing it to a single office and sacking staff) selling it off to the former managing director and daughter of the registered directors Angela Dennison (aka Angela Forster) as a phoenix company. The new company is DENNISON PROPERTY SERVICES LTD but will continue trading under Jan Forster Estates, in a triumph of personal vanity over brand viability.
What is a SLAPP?
A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) is not really about winning a legal case. It’s about stopping people from speaking.
SLAPPs are a misuse of the legal system. They involve bringing, or more commonly threatening, legal action that is weak, vague, or unmeritorious, using aggressive tactics to shut down lawful criticism or organising on matters of public interest.
Why you shouldn’t donate to a fundraiser…but become a member instead (or as well!)
There’s just 5 days left to donate to our 2025 Xmas art fundraiser and support bigger food parcels this Xmas for members (final date 19th December). But don’t worry, I’m here to discourage you from donating! Instead, consider becoming a Food & Solidarity member. There’s no rush! You can actually do this at any time and not just for Xmas.
This April, Food & Solidarity is running a practical workshop on housing organising - how to act when someone near you is in trouble, and how neighbours can back each other up instead of dealing with landlords and councils alone.
The day before, we're also taking part in a booklet launch that came directly out of that work.
These events are about what happens when neighbours stop dealing with housing problems alone - and start acting together.