Sue Barbieri, staff and volunteers of the zero interest loans service. Picture: supplied.
Jenan Taylor
2 April 2023
A Cockatoo church’s financial aid ministry is trying to ease hardship for an increasing number of people through its no interest loan scheme.
South East NILS says it has experienced a surge in new loan accounts and that in February alone it had approved more than 97 loans.
Manager Sue Barbieri said prior to COVID the Emerald-based office was handling about 80 loans a month, and that that had dropped to 60 a month during pandemic restrictions.
Ms Barbieri said there were now more than 750 loans on her team’s books, the highest number in its 15-year-old history.
No interest loan programs are an initiative of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand aimed at providing Australians with access to safe and affordable credit. They are funded by the federal government’s Department of Social Services in partnership with National Australia Bank.
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According to Good Shepherd from September 2022 to February 2023, its no interest loans impacted almost 40,000 people in Australian households compared to 31,274 at the same time the previous year.
Ms Barbieri said in recent years her team had started to look after the finances of people in the local hills area as well as those in Cranbourne and Pakenham, and as far away as the Mornington Peninsula.
She believed that while the current financial climate drove many loan applications, domestic violence and mental health issues also played a role.
Ms Barbieri said most applications were for car repairs, white goods and school essentials, and that the loans were designed to avoid placing approved applicants under any added hardship, while combatting predatory lending initiatives.
She said in one instance, an applicant who had lived in the rough was finally able to secure a caravan.
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Ms Barbieri said it was likely that without access to the no interest loan, he and others like him would turn to payday loans or to unacceptable money lenders.
Some might even face eviction, be forced into rental agreements or just go without, she said.
In 2021 Melbourne University research found that payday style financial products tended to entrench disadvantage by charging added fees, among other practices.
A parishioner at St Luke’s Cockatoo, Ms Barbieri said the program started in Cockatoo when the church together with Monash Health, the local neighbourhood house and a township committee, identified a need for community financial counselling for the area’s many disadvantaged families.
Ms Barbieri said that with the increased number of applicants, the staff and volunteers were the busiest they had ever been, but that they had a heart for wanting to make people’s lives easier.
She said because the loans didn’t cover money for food, groceries and utilities, the service often worked in conjunction with the church’s other ministries, including its food aid initiative, to stretch their capacity to provide help for people.
Ms Barbieri said she had done pastoral care work, including helping with funerals, and that her faith had a great deal of bearing on her focuses.
Set to retire before being asked to head South East NILS, she said the work had brought extra opportunities to help change people’s lives.
“It’s an extra bonus that, even if we don’t verbalise it to community members in need, we can act as Jesus would in their lives,” Ms Barbieri said.
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