Hundreds of people across Newcastle are relying on a city homeless charity as their only source of food each day - and numbers are continuing to rise.
The People's Kitchen on Bath Lane has seen the number of people turning up to the charity to receive a hot meal every night almost double in just 18 months as the cost of living crisis bites. Volunteers are serving almost 300 meals to homeless and vulnerable every evening - a figure that has risen sharply from the 150 meals that were being served nightly in December 2020.
The rise in demand is so great that volunteers say the kitchen is regularly reaching its capacity for how many meals it can cook with the facilities it has. However, the dedicated team of volunteers have "reserve meals" on standby to ensure that people do not go hungry.
