Jenan Taylor
4 May 2023
More people are lining up for community service support as living pressures and the housing crisis bite hard, frontline workers say.
St Mark’s Fitzroy Community Centre coordinator Wayne Gleeson said there were usually 30 to 40 people attending meal programs each week but that had more than doubled in recent months.
St Mark’s, and St Peter’s Eastern Hill, provide food, shower and laundry assistance to people experiencing primary and secondary homelessness.
Mr Gleeson said there were now more than 100 people accessing the support programs each week and there were many single men, as well as several women fleeing domestic violence, among the new faces.
But some also made enquiries about housing assistance, Mr Gleeson said.
Read more: Rental housing shortage hardest on those on income support
It comes as new Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed that living costs for all households were at a record high.
According to the bureau, higher prices for health, housing, food and interest charges had contributed to increased living costs for all household types.
The report followed Anglicare Victoria’s annual rental affordability snapshot which showed a shortage of affordable rental properties in the state.
Only 100 properties were affordable for Victorians on income support, but for people on Youth Allowance or Job Seeker payments not a single affordable property was available without putting them into rental stress.
Mr Gleeson said many people who sought assistance at St Mark’s and St Peter’s were from regional towns, such as Shepparton, or were from interstate.
He said although that kind of migration was nothing unusual, the influx had risen since the pandemic.
“There’s probably more supports available with regard to their needs in comparison to where they’re from, but they’re coming here because they think that there’s more accommodation options available,” Mr Gleeson said.
Read more: More volunteers needed for annual winter homeless shelter
Mental health ministry Boroondara Community Outreach said a lot more people were turning to the service and that most were struggling to afford to meet rental payments, whether they were in private rental or rooming house situations.
Coordinator and minister the Reverend Natalie Dixon-Monu said even if people received pension or payment increases, it didn’t go into their pockets and was swallowed up by their rent instead.
Ms Dixon-Monu said the majority of people BCO supported were prison leavers, many of whom lived in rooming houses, women escaping domestic violence, migrants on protection visas, and people with severe mental illness.
“These are people who are already at the bottom of rung of the ladder, and this [cost of living] pressure is just pushing them off. Even those who used to be able to afford their rent now can’t afford their rent at all, because everyone is being pushed down,” Ms Dixon-Monu said.
Christ Church Geelong parishioner Jan McGowan said the church’s community meals program had also experienced a surge of people, and that there was an increasing number of women among them.
She said the program had been running for more than 30 years and that some individuals who were accessing the service appeared to be returning, because there were cards on the system to show they had been there years before.
Ms McGowan said that housing was definitely a problem and that it appeared several people were sleeping rough.
“We don’t ask questions, but we do know because we’ve noticed that they are carrying their worldly goods with them,” she said.
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