The big purple bus that pulls into Doveton College used to ferry people to Melbourne airport. But with many planes grounded earlier in the pandemic, it was donated to Foodbank, which repurposed it to meet rising demand for food relief.
Doveton, in Melbourne’s outer south-east, has long battled disadvantage, even in good economic conditions. Nearly 70% of the students at the prep to year nine school are in the lowest 25% of the population for socio-educational advantage. The median income in the suburb is $221 lower than the rest of Victoria.
Staff at the school, which has won plaudits for linking education with broader social programs, say the cost of living crisis is biting hard here. In about three months, the number of students attending the school breakfast program has risen from 45 to 150.
“Families are talking to us about having to make choices about attendance because of the cost of fuel,” says Amara Miles, the school’s health and wellbeing coordinator.
Among the dozens of families who meet the Foodbank bus in the driving rain this week are Peter and Belinda Willoughby, whose 12-year-old daughter attends the school.
The couple live locally, work casually as security guards and receive family payments through Centrelink. Peter lists the kind of questions they now ask themselves: “Do we take from the electricity bill or the gas to pay for food? Or do we take from the rent … and then you get in trouble with the real estate?”
The federal budget this week warned the pain hitting low- and middle-income households such as the Willoughbys would get worse over the coming months. Power prices are expected to rise by 56% over the next two years, wages will continue going backwards in real terms, and the government has made no commitment to raise jobseeker or other welfare payments that leave people below the poverty line.
Advocates have said measures in the budget to cut childcare costs and the price of medicine were welcome but, given the surging need across the country, some shudder at what’s around the corner.
“This is the most severe we’ve seen it,” says Ronni Kahn, who has led the food relief charity OzHarvest for 18 years.
‘An equation that doesn’t add up’
A Guardian Australia analysis last year found that over the past decade, reliance on food relief had become embedded in Australian society.
The federal government directly funds three food relief providers that also leverage philanthropy to source and deliver produce to thousands of charities. Those groups then distribute it across Australia.
All three – Foodbank, Secondbite and OzHarvest – say demand is higher now than earlier in the pandemic. Though they measure this differently, Secondbite reported 77% of its partner agencies surveyed had requested more food to meet rising demand in the past 12 months, while OzHarvest says 61% of its partners have said the same.
OzHarvest managed to work its waiting list of charities down to zero during the pandemic. Now, there are about 150 charities who need food to distribute to their clients but OzHarvest does not have the resources to assist.
Foodbank Victoria’s chief executive, Dave McNamara, says it increased distribution by 21% in 2021-22, and has experienced a further rise since July. “I’ve been here 15 years and I haven’t seen distribution grow at that rate in one year before,” he says.
AskIzzy, which connects people in need with social services, says it fielded nearly 60,000 searches for food relief last month, up nearly 10,000 on the same time in 2021.
Many of the people helped by these organisations are now getting much less support from the government in welfare payments or other cash assistance than they did earlier in the pandemic. Charities also say they will be doing more with less when Covid funding for the emergency relief sector dries up.
“I can’t square that,” says Steve Clifford, the chief executive of Secondbite. “There is an equation that just doesn’t add up.”
Anglicare Australia has been among the most vocal charities calling for an increase to social security payments to at least bring recipients above the poverty line – and has even backed a universal basic income.
The charity provides broader emergency relief, including financial help and other material assistance. In a report released last week, it said that demand had increased for all its services over the past 12 months.
Among them is St John’s Care in the centre of Canberra. Over the capital’s brutally cold winter, the charity provided tents, blankets and warm clothing to people sleeping in their cars, as well as “backpack beds” – essentially a wearable swag with a storage component – to others.
“And then we send them out there,” says St John’s Jason Haines. “It’s horrible. Because we’re in Canberra people are like, ‘There are no homeless there’ – but the homeless numbers are increasing.”
Haines says the charity is now handing out food to about 600 families a month. He says they are seeing, on average, nearly 40 new clients each month. Some have jobs, while others have lost theirs. Some have mortgages, others have been evicted from rental properties.
Some clients were doing their best to hide the situation from their children. “They are trying to make it like camping and making it fun for their kids,” he says.
“They’re getting up and getting a shower at the local swimming pool and then taking kids to school. They pick them up in the afternoon and they stay somewhere different. You think to yourself, ‘They are doing the best they can.’ As a father, I can’t imagine what that’s like.”
Anglicare Australia’s chief executive, Kasy Chambers, describes charity as “an elastoplast”. She acknowledges that emergency relief and charity are “not a long-term fix”.
Chambers argues their services act as a “canary in the mine”, capturing evidence of financial stress before it is picked up by other economic indicators.
‘We’ll keep hoping that the bus can stay’
Foodbank Victoria’s Dave McNamara says that a recent drive-through service that handed out 4,000 hampers in Melbourne was mostly used by people with paid work. Demand for its services has been increasing in the mortgage belt suburbs of the outer west, north and south-east.
And in Sydney’s south-west, Anglicare’s financial counsellors are seeing people who are at risk of losing their homes due to interest rates rises.
“All the things that we thought were on the horizon are starting to knock on our door,” says Teresa Clark, head of food and financial assistance programs at Anglicare Sydney.
Back in Doveton, families moving through the Foodbank bus step out into an unrelenting downpour. There is a steady stream of people over two hours, despite the weather. Foodbank and the school staff will drop off food to other families who were unable to make it.
Peter and Belinda Willoughby head home into an even more uncertain future. Their rental property is up for sale and they may have to move. “At this stage, we’re hoping not,” Peter Willoughby says. “Our lease runs out on December 17th, smack-bang in the middle of Christmas. If it happens, it will be the second time in two years.”
Asked about further increases in the cost of living, he looks forlorn.
“We’ll keep hoping that the bus can stay.”
