Poverty and Coronavirus in Edinburgh
Edinburgh Poverty Commission was launched in November 2018 and over 15 months met 6 times in full session. During that period, we have held 100 evidence sessions and project visits, met and heard from over 70 local organisations, commissioned significant new research into the experience of citizens living on low incomes and attitudes to poverty across the city and in total heard from more than 1,000 individual participants.
In the midst of drafting our final report in March this year the lockdown to limit the impact of Covid19 was imposed and we realised over the days immediately following that everything had changed. As we came to terms with what the restrictions to normal life and measures put in place to support individuals and organisations would mean for us in our personal and working lives, we realised there would be profound impacts for people living in poverty.We decided to delay publishing our final report until the autumn and in the meantime to connect with many of the people and organisations we have engaged with over the last fifteen months to hear what was happening across the city, to listen to concerns, fears and hopes and reflect on what this means for poverty in Edinburgh, now and in the future
