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Report
Deep poverty and destitution
Neighbourhoods and communities

Designing out the most severe forms of hardship in local areas

This report asks what it would look like for a local area to do everything it can to ‘design out’ the most severe forms of hardship, to ensure no one ever experiences them.

Written by:
Grace Pollard and Imran Hashmi
Date published:

There is an urgent need to respond to the growing numbers of people across the UK affected by deepening poverty. This is not just about mitigating the impact of this severe hardship, but also about tackling its root causes.

Building on existing activity, this report sets out a framework to support local areas to make progress towards designing out the most severe forms of hardship. This framework is based around six key areas of action, in three groups:

  • building a strategy and coalition,
  • shifting power and redesigning the system,
  • creating the conditions for sustainable local change.
Food bank worker sorting a bread delivery.

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