Christmas on the breadline

If you’re looking for a symbol of how much more stressful Christmas is for some families in 2020 than in previous years, look no further than the current traffic jams in Christchurch. Busy traffic and queues near Christchurch City Mission’s Hereford St headquarters forced the city council to make the street one-way until Christmas Eve. Traffic chaos was caused by high demand for the mission’s emergency food parcels.

Hardship at Christmas is a familiar annual story but there is a different dimension to it in 2020. While Covid-19 restrictions have cancelled or at least curtailed Christmas in other countries, the day can be celebrated in New Zealand without limits on numbers. Yet the pandemic has still had an impact on Christmas in 2020.

Christchurch’s city missioner, the appropriately named Matthew Mark, has ascribed the increased demand to the social impact of Covid-19.

The pattern is repeated elsewhere in the country. Auckland City Mission has doubled the number of food parcels it makes available and its phone lines went down after it received 42,000 calls in one day. There was also a massive jump in demand in March, when New Zealand went into level 4 lockdown.

As in other centres, Auckland City Mission has noticed a significant increase in the working poor asking for help. A double income might have dropped to one income due to the pandemic, while costs of living, especially rent, have continued to rise.

Trade Me’s figures, released this week, showed that the national median weekly rent is 21 per cent higher now than in 2015. While the national median is $520, in the Wellington region it reaches $580 and in the Auckland region $575.

Auckland City Mission has been giving out about 1000 food parcels per week in 2020. The

Ko¯ kiri Marae foodbank in Wainuiomata, Lower Hutt, has been handing out around a quarter of that number in recent weeks but also gave out as many as 1000 per week during the lockdown. Other charities, such as Wellington City Mission and the Salvation Army, have seen similar increases in demand.

Auckland City Mission CEO Chris Farrelly has said that one in 10 New Zealanders were in ‘‘food poverty’’ before the Covid-19 crisis hit. That doubled to one in five after Covid-19, according to the mission’s research. ‘‘Food poverty’’ is defined as an inability to access reliable, nutritious food daily.

The Ministry of Health’s research found that 19 per cent of New Zealand children experienced severe-to-moderate food insecurity in 2015-16, and 1.6 per cent were in severe food insecurity. Those numbers are likely to have soared under Covid-19.

There is no denying that a problem exists and is worsening. Again, this week’s Christchurch traffic jam is a perfect illustration. A solution seems straightforward as well.

As former assistant Anglican bishop of Auckland Richard Randerson pointed out in a letter to the Dominion Post this week, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group found in 2019 that

$5.2 billion would provide adequate support to those on the margins. The advisory group explained ‘‘the income support part of the welfare system has fallen behind the real growth in New Zealand incomes’’. Eligibility rules have not kept up either.

We are seeing the stark results this Christmas, with New Zealand’s working poor, and those who did not previously believe they were poor, forced to rely on charity.

There is no denying that a problem exists and is worsening ... A solution seems straightforward as well.