By Violet Li
Community Information and Support Cranbourne executive officer Leanne Petrides has called for increased funds for emergency relief as more locals are crying out for help as Christmas fast approaches.
She said housing and cost of living were placing more stress and pressure on people at this time of the year.
The centre usually sees up to 40 households every day with emergency relief, but Ms Petrides had an additional 26 households that called for Christmas support on the first day of their Christmas program.
Ms Petrides said the Christmas program in the centre tried to give parents gifts for their children, so the families could get the ordinary joy of seeing the happiness on their kids’ faces.
Christmas season could be tough for people in need, according to Ms Petrides.
“Some people are talking about feeling embarrassed about not even being able to provide anything beyond, if they’re lucky, a regular meal,” she said.
“There’s no kind of Christmas treats. There’s no special thing that they can have at the table.
“Anyone who’s a parent wants their kids to have that joy of opening up gifts and spending time together as a family on Christmas morning, so this is one of the things that upsets a parent in particular if they cannot make that happen.”
She pointed out for outer suburbs like Cranbourne, the added impact of the cost of petrol was driving more and more people to seek support from the centre.
“We had a parent the other day ring and say she drove her children to school, which was in the next suburb, and then she just stepped in her car to drive around and apply for jobs, so she has to minimise the cost of petrol in any way that she can,” she said.
New research by financial comparison site Finder has found that Australian households are nearing the top of their financial pressure limits.
Australians are found out to be at an ‘extreme’ pressure level of 79 per cent at the end of November, up from 45 per cent in November 2020.
With the centre stretched to help with Christmas, its funding from the government did not meet up with the needs in the community.
“We get funded by the Federal Government for emergency relief, which helps us purchase our food and petrol vouchers. Unfortunately, that funding has decreased since Covid,” she said.
“There were a lot of additional people seeking support for the very first time, But that funding has now gone down to pre-Covid levels at a time when more people are struggling.
“We get no funding for Christmas from any government sources. It is all community donations.”
Ms Petrides believed the real housing issue in Casey was there was not one rental property classified as affordable.
“On the other hand, we have a lot of people on a Centrelink benefit or low income or reliant on casual jobs in Casey.”
The latest Rental Affordability Index by SGS Economics and Planning has shown Casey rentals are at their most unaffordable since 2015.
For pensioner couples, rental prices are rated as “severely unaffordable” across Casey, with Berwick ranking the lowest, followed by Narre Warren, Cranbourne, and Hampton Park.
Ms Petrides said she was frustrated at the fact that she had to have the same discussions with people in power around, about the need for increased funding, the need for livable incomes, and the need to drastically increase the number of social housing properties in the area.
“I’ve been having those conversations for 25 years, and I can honestly say that this year is the worst I have ever seen it,” she said.
