Food handouts on rise as lockdowns take toll

LOCKDOWNS are forcing the pandemic poor to beg for food as charities struggle with soaring demand for help.

Foodbank has a backlog of more than 10,000 requests for food relief in NSW alone, while online searches for financial assistance through Infoxchange have surged 76 per cent in Victoria.

International students, who rely on casual work and receive no welfare payments, have made 20,000 requests for food hampers since the start of the Sydney lockdown.

Australians on social security payments such as JobSeeker do not qualify for any Covid-19 disaster payments, even if they have lost the casual work they relied on to top up welfare payments.

Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie said charities were struggling with a “huge surge in financial distress’’ among people in lockdowns.

Ms Goldie urged the federal government to lift payments for all people without work to $600 a week, and to reintroduce a targeted JobKeeper payment for industries hardest hit by lockdowns.

“There are now one million people in lockdown receiving social security payments such as JobSeeker or Youth Allowance,’’ she said.

“Many have lost part-time work that they relied on to supplement the paltry social security payments due to the lockdown.’’

Foodbank Australia chief executive Brianna Casey said 10,000 residents were on a waiting list for free food in Sydney, the Central Coast and Wollongong, where more than 12,000 hampers had been distributed this month.

“We are seeing a new working poor,’’ Ms Casey said.

“We have people who have worked really hard all their lives suddenly finding themselves in need of food relief.

“When you are living from pay cheque to pay cheque, it only takes one missing pay cheque before you find yourself in financial distress.

“People are choosing between heating and eating.’’

Ms Casey said single parents, international students, temporary visa holders and welfare recipients – as well as people in quarantine – were all struggling to pay bills as lockdowns stopped them working.

“What breaks my heart is that we find there are mums who have waited days because they were so ashamed asking for help to get food for their children,” she said.

Foodbank is now processing up to 3500 food hampers a day in NSW – as many as it used to process in an entire week before the pandemic hit.

Anti-Poverty Week executive director Toni Wren said one in six Australian children were living in poverty.

Justice Connect chief executive Chris Povey said some elderly Australians were suffering abuse in lockdown, and families too poor to pay rent were being evicted into homelessness.