Welfare services feel the pinch

While services in the city have historically supported the most disadvantaged members of the community, they are increasingly assisting a new group of individuals and families who have fallen on tough times, said Captain Robyn Moulds of the Salvation Army in Surry Hills. “The history of our Centre would be that we would see predominantly the marginalised, the disadvantaged living in this area,” she said. “All of a sudden in the mix of that we have been seeing people who have become redundant and have lost their jobs and that has never really been the case.”

More people are coming to the service for assistance with rent, food and other support.

“The government has given us some additional funding for that purpose of being able to support those who are finding it really tough at the moment,” Captain Moulds said.

Cana Communities, a charity that provides crisis accommodation and runs a community cafe in Redfern, depends solely on donations from the community. Coordinator, Julie Sneddon, said that funding has remained consistent despite the recession, but the service has noticed a significant increase in people seeking support. “We’re seeing a lot more people who have been in jobs for a long period of time, who are educated people who are now in a position where they’ve had to sell their homes and they haven’t got any other family support,” Ms Sneddon said.

Pastor Graham Long of the Wayside Chapel said it would take much longer for the recession to impact his service in the way it has affected many others. “A lot of the recession has bitten hard for people who, for the past ten years have said ‘we’re having great times’, but for the people we see, they never knew there were great times in the last ten years,” he said.

The economic crisis had a significant impact on the service’s funding from August to October last year. “Our donations from corporates just disappeared. They just simply went away. So we had to find a lot of extra funding plus anticipated less giving from the public. But what in fact has happened is the public has become exceedingly generous,” Mr Long said. “We’re running to budget right to the end of the financial year ... that doesn’t say anything about the year ahead of course, it might get ugly. But right now we’re doing ok,” he said.

Quakers Service Australia is an aid and development agency based in Surry Hills that works on projects both overseas and within Indigenous communities in Australia. On the second Friday of each month the NSW branch of the service runs a stall in Devonshire Street to raise money for projects. Disadvantaged members of the community can often negotiate prices for secondhand goods, and on rare occasions the service will give items for free to those in need.

Anna Bell, who convenes the stall each month, said: “We have the local Housing Commission block very close, and those people are some of our best customers. We’re certainly very aware of their needs and we try to keep the prices as low as we can.” Proceeds from the stall are given to Quaker Service Australia, which has witnessed a decline in funding due to the economic downturn.

Finance Officer, John Dundas, said: “Initially we had about a 50 per cent drop in donations coming in but that has picked up a bit. We’re down to about two thirds of where we were in the last few years at the same time.”

Photo: Esther Turnbull - Caption: Quaker Service Australia in Surry Hills

Source: South Sydney Herald June 2009 www.southsydneyherald.com.au