Home owners facing cost-of-living stress from higher interest rates and other inflationary pressures are becoming a new group of people seeking out donated food in Adelaide, a charity and a welfare group says.
The Reserve Bank has increased interest rates seven times this year and Adelaide house prices have continued to increase despite the national downward trend.
Energy and grocery costs also continue to rise.
Puddle Jumpers, a charity which donates food and other goods to families in need, is now only allowing people to take one pantry item at a time, although fruit, vegetables and bakery items are still more readily available.
The organisation posted on Facebook that it had noticed people accessing its services for the first time.
"There's been close to 600 people through the doors over a few days and we have had people who had tears as they were so grateful for receiving help," the organisation wrote on social media.
Mandy Norris, who lives in Prospect with her two sons, uses the support of Puddle Jumpers on a regular basis.
She said she was "just grateful they can help".
"We've found them really helpful when we've struggled week to week to buy food and feed the kids. They've been amazing," she said.
But Ms Norris, who also relies on housing support from Housing SA, has noticed the reduction in the availability of pantry items, and attributes it to increased demand driven by cost-of-living pressures.
"People are crying out for free food and meals," she said.
"I've lost my job. I broke my foot so I've had no work … so we're kind of struggling.
"It's just me and my two boys who live here and I'm supporting them on my own.
"There are a lot of homeless people too because they can't find rentals — they're too expensive — so there's big demand these days for sure."
Puddle Jumpers chief executive Melanie Tate said the organisation was facing "unprecedented demand" for its services, with the number of people picking up food each week in the western suburbs jumping from 150 to 600.
"We're seeing these massive demands in people needing food relief and people that have never asked for it before," she said.
"As well, as things are a bit lighter on the donation side, from things like schools or workplaces or even food industry places that are donating to us."
She said it could be embarrassing for people to ask for help for the first time and she urged people not to be judgemental.
"There are families that have never had to ask for it before and my experience is they actually feel quite embarrassed to ask for help," she said.
"It's quite a huge thing because they're worried about the judgements that they might have from people saying, 'Well, you know, if you're a home owner …'"
"You might be struggling to make ends meet and you want to hold onto your home, and selling it might lose money anyway.
"Or the people that might have a luxury car, well, they might have inherited that car or they might have it on a payment plan or they might have been given that, so selling that car is going to actually be detrimental to that family versus keeping the car.
"But then they might need a little help with the everyday essentials like food items to get them through this really rough period."
Rental prices have increased significantly across South Australia over the past two years, leading many people to get into the housing market to secure accommodation.
South Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Ross Womersley said the interest rate increases were adding up for these people, and a range of organisations were facing the same issue as Puddle Jumpers.
"We know there is a group of people who have been enticed to take on mortgages in an effort to access housing and in the process may well have hocked themselves to the nines not only in purchasing and paying for their mortgage — their house — but also paying for many of the items in their households," he said.
"Those people are now getting squeezed as interest rates increase, not just from mortgage rate increases but also from increases in other debt services like bank cards and things that will have much higher rates of interest applying."
Puddle Jumpers has recently tried to open new distribution centres in Adelaide's southern suburbs but council approvals have been delayed because of coming elections.
