Sounds soft, fuzzy and comforting, doesn’t it, like a fluffy sweater or a minky blanket?

Yeah, well, none of the above.

You know how here, when the temps are forecast to drop below freezing, and a “Code Blue” goes into effect for a locale’s homeless population – where they open the libraries and public heated spaces, so folks can get off the freezing sidewalks and into someplace warm?

This is the British version of that concept. The problem with it is that it’s not for the homeless. These government-designated refuges are for homeowners, who are at risk of freezing to death in their own homes because they can no longer afford the heating oil, gas and/or electricity to keep them livable. All this during what is shaping up to be a brutal winter.

Every morning on her days off, Mary Obomese wraps up in her winter coat and heads to Woolwich Centre Library in southeast London, where she spends two hours on the computer and keeps herself warm.

The 52-year-old, who works as a healthcare assistant in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), is among those who are turning to ‘warm banks’ – designated spaces where people can go if they cannot afford to turn on their heating at home.

…Obomese, who lives in a council flat and earns about 1,500 pounds ($1,828) per month, is the main earner in her family, with her two children still in education and her husband working as a freelance journalist.

The family has been operating an ‘on-off’ system with their heating, turning it on in the mornings and then off for most of the day, then intermittently in the evenings when the children return from school and university. When they get cold, Obomese said, they wrap up in their coats or sit on the sofa with blankets.

…She said she now uses a whistling kettle instead of an electric one, in order to keep costs down, and keeps hot water for coffee in a flask after boiling, to avoid heating the water again.

There is, of course, a huge stigma attached to having to find heat somewhere other than your own home – people are horribly embarrassed that they can’t make do for themselves. There’s also a massive part of the British population living on fixed incomes who, by virtue of their age and disabilities, cannot get to these places of shelter.

Jonathan Ashworth: "Warm banks are a new phenomenon… where people go b/c they can't afford to heat their homes.. pensioners are trying to heat tins of beans with tea lights… this is devastating in what is supposedly one of the biggest economies in the world.. "#KayBurley pic.twitter.com/LFbnZSac1F

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) December 19, 2022

Literally, the entire country is being turned into paupers and needs help staying warm.

‘Warm banks’ should have been word of the year (yes, it would count).

Literally never heard this term until 2022. pic.twitter.com/gZL102yrjC

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) December 15, 2022

The statistics are absolutely staggering.

…Energy bills in Britain have leapt by more than 80% this year – one of the highest rates in Europe – forcing people to make impossible choices between heating their homes or eating, according to experts.

And it is predicted to get worse.

An estimated 8.4 million British households will be in fuel poverty from April 2023, according to National Energy Action.

There is only a shade over 67 million people in the whole country, and this is saying a good percentage of households – the 8.4M number alone would be about 8% of the population if it was individuals, so I’d hate to see that math. The number of people could triple. No doubt many of those households so in trouble now were getting by alright before this artificially induced catastrophe hit them. Like the woman above, whose public service salary and subsidized housing kept her little family afloat – food on the table, lights on, and an expectation of Christmas presents. But not now.

It’s also an illustration of what the British public service unions have been trying to highlight with walk-outs and strikes. The woefully inadequate compensation, especially in light of the government policies that are forcing people into poverty. These folks are nowhere near as compensated as a federal GS worker, say, a nurse in a VA hospital or admin type in a bureau. And darn near everything has been nationalized.

Visited @RCNWales pickets this morning. They were very clear about the future they want for the NHS. They were worried about recruiting nurses & attracting them to the role. They also wanted to make sure that the cost of living crisis isn’t making nurses visit food & warm banks. pic.twitter.com/HID52GxluB

— Rhianydd Williams (@Rhianydd_Will) December 20, 2022

Schools have been reporting for months that more and more children have been coming in hungry every day – estimates being as high as 1 in every 3 children living in poverty in England – and energy prices are affecting the schools’ ability to pick up that slack.

…Children are so hungry that they are eating rubbers or hiding in the playground because they can’t afford lunch, according to reports from headteachers across England.

…One school in Lewisham, south-east London, told the charity about a child who was “pretending to eat out of an empty lunchbox” because they did not qualify for free school meals and did not want their friends to know there was no food at home.

…“It’s absolutely heartbreaking for our chefs. They are actively going out and finding the kids who are hiding in the playground because they don’t think they can get a meal, and feeding them,” she said.

…He said that with huge energy bills and an unfunded teacher pay rise, supporting desperate families would push hundreds of schools into deficit. Headteachers welcomed the government’s announcement last week that electricity and gas in schools would be capped at a lower “government-supported price”, knocking off £4,000 for a school paying £10,000 a month for energy. But they expressed anxiety that the cap is only being offered for six months, and warned that many schools will still be left with much higher bills than they budgeted for.

As an aside, I find it appalling how our own Smithsonian puts a chirpy spin on something so absolutely soul-destroying.

Libraries across the United Kingdom are becoming “warm banks,” which are spaces for people who need a place to keep warm in the winter. https://t.co/kSwuRWDnKE

— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) December 19, 2022

So far they’ve opened over 3400 of these warm banks, with more in the offing. Cold comfort I’m sure to those who were once able to manage their own affairs and provide for their families, even on limited budgets.

It’s hard watching your kids suffer. It’s hard answering their questions, too, when you’re trying as best as you can, but the solutions are beyond your control…

…Obomese said her family had survived on just rice and pasta earlier this year after they ran out of money to buy food, with her children asking, “mummy, how can we be like this when we are in the UK?”

…and there isn’t a soul who seems to be doing anything to fix what they broke.

“How can we be like this?” indeed.