We are not yet seeing the knock-on affects of the cost-of-living crisis, warns Yorkshire charity CEO

Ruth Kettle spoke to The Yorkshire Post ahead of the Community Links’s 40th anniversary, and noted the stark situation she expected to see over the next year.

Community Links is a mental health and wellbeing charity which provides vital support with issues such as housing, early intervention with psychosis, and dementia.

Speaking about current cost-of-living issues, Ms Kettle said: “I don't even think the impact of that is fully apparent yet, but I think it's going to be catastrophic.

“You can't even dress it up to say anything palatable, because I think people are going to die, people are going to be cold, people won't be able to afford to eat properly at all, and they won't be able to afford to warm their homes.”

Ms Kettle noted how a client which the charity helps with housing had recently asked for their gas to be cut off in order to avoid having to pay the standing charge.

Inspire North operates across Yorkshire and The Humber, and was formed after Community Links merged with Foundation in 2018.

While both were formed in the 1980s, Community links was set up to support people experiencing homelessness, while Foundation's focus was helping ex-offenders.

Ms Kettle began working for Community Links 19 years ago, and became CEO in December 2014, before taking over both organisations in the merger.

“I am really passionate the fact that anybody who gets in touch with our service gets a really positive response first time,” she said.

“We might not be the right people to help them but what we need to do is try and get people to someone that can help them.

"I know that if we do not get it right then people often do not reach out again for years, it takes so much courage to say ‘I need help.’”

Ms Kettle also noted the vital service the charity had provided during the pandemic, visiting people who were at serious risk due to mental health issues.

"We couldn't lose contact with anybody – because we might have lost someone if we didn't go and knock on their door, some people were so close to the edge of not been able to cope," she said.

"We did it on a risk assessed basis, so people we thought were okay we would see virtually, but others we would have to knock on their door because it was life and death."

The group runs a service called Young Dementia Leeds, which offers support to under-65s who are going through dementia.

The charity worked with this group to create a cook book developed by and for those suffering with dementia.

Last year, the charity also took a number of clients on a five-day and night sailing trip around the East coast of England.

"These are people suffering from psychosis or high-level anxiety – they had never done something like this before – and it just puts you into survival mode," said Ms Kettle.

"And the feedback that we got from the clients who went was that it was life changing, there's nowhere to go, you can't lock yourself in your bedroom or get away, whatever is going on in your mind you had to get through it.

"It was really transformative – and we love doing things like that in Community Links – were not always as grand as that but that is the ethos of the organisation."