Charities on struggle street
More than just a meal, food banks also provide social connections to vulnerable Kiwis. But Pete McKenzie explains why that’s facing serious challenges.
The Wellington City Mission’s Newtown headquarters is designed to be inviting. On normal days, its guests – Wellington’s homeless community, struggling families, poor students – can walk past a colourful mural, through two sets of double doors and access a social worker, a warm meal and a friendly smile.
But since the level-four lockdown was implemented, the two sets of double doors are now a makeshift airlock.
Guests wait outside for a staff member to unlock the first set and retreat behind the second, at which point they’re allowed to enter the foyer and pick up one of the takeaway food bags which the Mission is churning out. The entire foyer is then sanitised, and the process repeats.
The friendly smile is there, but separated by a pane of glass. This is charity in the era of Covid-19.
Across the country, charities like the Wellington City Mission have been classed as essential services. But operating in a newly infectious world has forced them to both enlarge and change their services.
Many are shifting to takeaway meals and reaching out to clients via phone or email instead of through in-person visits. With essential status mainly limited to employees, most charities have had to redeploy staff to focus on tasks previously done by volunteers.
‘‘We’ve got an all-hands-tothe-pump philosophy. If your normal job would be to apply for money for some community trust, you’re now packing food parcels or delivering things,’’ says Murray Edridge, the Wellington City Missioner.
These organisations are also responding to a sudden surge in demand – the Wellington City Mission has seen a 400 per cent increase in demand.
The Salvation Army has had a 95 per cent surge over that same time period, with each week bringing new growth.
Gerry Walker, Assistant Territorial Secretary for the Salvation Army says the organisatioin is expecting demand for food is going to increase, ‘‘whether we move out of level four lockdown or not’’.
That soaring demand has brought many charities to breaking point. Chris Farrelly, the Auckland City Missioner, says they’ve seen demand double since the outbreak. ‘‘We’ve about reached capacity in terms of our own logistics.’’
This expanding need for charities’ support is caused by a variety of factors, according to Edridge.
‘‘It’s a reflection of economic circumstances for people who are losing their jobs. [There’s also] an ironic impact of some of the panic-buying we’ve seen, which is that some of the budget brands are selling out and people can’t afford premium products.’’
This surge has been mirrored in countries all around the world, as the pandemic prompts an accompanying hunger crisis.
The New Zealand Red Cross typically supports 1300 of the quota refugees New Zealand takes in each year.
‘‘Quite a lot of those new people to the community are new to the country. They haven’t had the orientation on how to go to the supermarket, how to register with the GP, that kind of thing,’’ explained Niamh Lawless, the organisation’s SecretaryGeneral.
‘‘They’re needing quite intensive support because the environment they’re walking into feels even more scary and alien. If you go to the supermarket you feel like you’re in an end-of-the-world movie.’’
Even as these charities pump out food parcels and support services against the odds, something else is lost. According to Edridge, the Wellington City Mission usually provides muchneeded human contact.
‘‘Those things don’t exist anymore, and that’s really hard. Most of us go home at night and have someone to talk to. Our guests often don’t. We’re facing a major problem in the coming weeks around loneliness.’’
The Downtown Community Mission, a Wellington charity which focuses mainly on homelessness, has experienced similar disruption. In a small courtyard, it has cordoned off an area with traffic cones and tables to enforce physical distancings.
‘‘Usually when we’re open on site, we’re packed to the gunwales,’’ says director Stephanie McIntyre.
‘‘There was close contact. They shared food and cigarettes, they stood close to each other, they hugged each other.’’
To adapt to these newly isolating circumstances, the
Soup Kitchen has been encouraging its guests to share their phone numbers with each other.
The Wellington City Mission and DCM have gone a step further and handed out phones to keep in contact with those who are self-isolating, and are calling and emailing daily. McIntyre emphasised that they ‘‘don’t want to be a magnet drawing people in.’’
Nadia, a single mother-of-two who is supported by a social worker through the Wellington City Mission says the phone calls are comforting.
‘‘But that personal relationship, it’s key. [My social worker would] usually come into my house and talk about what’s going on. I look at that at a vital service, because it’s a breath of fresh air. It personalises the experience.’’
Even with remote communication, these charities expect that supporting their clients through lockdown – in which they will be busier than ever before – will be a struggle. Meeting basic needs will be a stark challenge; maintaining the human touch and social connection which they pride themselves on will be nearly impossible.
One of the pandemic’s positive consequences has been the new urgency with which the government has approached challenges which have festered for decades.
Around the country, for example, the government has made over one thousand motel units available to charitable organisations like the Auckland City Mission to help the chronically homeless and vulnerable self-isolate. It has significantly dented the country’s homelessness crisis.
But now that these people have been housed, the government and the charitable organisations it works with are facing a new challenge – what comes next. ‘‘This raises a fundamental ethical and moral issue of justice,’’ says Farrelly. ‘‘Once you’ve housed somebody, albeit temporarily, you can’t put them back on the street again… A consequence of Covid is that we must accelerate this programme even more so in the months ahead.’’
Meeting that challenge would require remarkable ambition. But, according to Farrelly, Covid-19 has swept some of the pre-existing structural challenges away, making it seem possible.
As Farrelly observed, ‘‘One of the problems in Auckland is that we just haven’t had the houses or apartments available. That’s changed radically. We’re seeing a lot of supply becoming available – former Airbnbs, or other short-term apartments. There will be a number of places where we can more permanently house these people. There’s quite a transformation taking place.’’
Another long-term challenge is that, although rapidly increasing demand for basic supplies like food have largely been met thus far, the newfound vulnerability of many New Zealanders is unlikely to go away once the lockdown lifts.
According to research by the Auckland City Mission, 10 percent of New Zealanders were in ‘‘food poverty’’ – unable to access reliable, nutritious food on a daily basis – before the crisis hit.
Farrelly estimates that Covid19 has doubled that number. ‘‘That’s not going to go away. That’s going to stay with us for a long, long time.’’
Responding to the strain of Covid-19, now and into the future, will be expensive. The Wellington City Mission and DCM report that some of their donors have recognised this immense strain. ‘‘DCM’s donors have caught onto this, so we’re getting donations rolling into our account,’’ said McIntyre.
Other charities have had more difficulty. The lockdown has forced the Salvation Army to close its Community Stores, which make up a significant percentage of their income.’’
The New Zealand Red Cross has experienced a similar hit. It has shut its 50 op-shops and is unable to provide first-aid training to paying customers. Lawless, the organisation’s secretary-general, says they’ve lost 30 per cent of their income.
This financial strain has added another stressor to an already chaotic situation. Lawless noted that, ‘‘Like other organisations, we’re still delivering everything we were delivering before. We’re delivering more, in some respects. We can’t continue to deliver this if we continue to lose that amount of income and there’s no further government support after that initial 12-week period.’’
In response to this financial crunch, the government has announced significant support for charities, including a $30m injection of funds for food banks this week. But given the magnitude of the crisis and its likely long-term impacts, the sustainability of their services is still in question.
Farrelly, the Auckland City Missioner, is confident that they ‘‘will get over this hump in the next month or two fine... We’ve responded magnificently to the immediate emergency.
‘‘The next stage though, there’s some really big question marks around it.’’
Pete McKenzie is a journalist and regular volunteer at Wellington City Mission.