After 25 years with Care Financial Counselling Service, and 16 years as its CEO, Carmel Franklin will retire this week. She intends to spend time with her family — but Care has been her second family, she says.

Care provides free and confidential support and assistance to people living on low to moderate incomes, or experiencing financial difficulty. Its work, Ms Franklin says, is practical: “People come out of the work that they do with our team here in a better position than they came in.”

Ms Franklin first became involved with Care in 1992, when she worked part-time in an education role. Although she left when her next child was born, she stayed in touch and came back in 2000.

“I didn’t expect that I was going to be here until I retired. That wasn’t the plan, but I believe Care is so valuable.  I just love what Care stands for, what we do, and how we do it. So I stayed…

“I’m proud I’ve had an opportunity to be part of, and grow, an organisation that is able to expand, adapt, change our programs to meet community need. I’m proud of the fact that we are an organisation that people in the community want to access if they’re in financial difficulty. We’re an organisation that staff want to work in. We’re an organisation that government and other funders trust to deliver services in the community.”

Last year, Care provided 17 per cent more support to clients experiencing financial hardship since 2022-23; that figure increased by 10 per cent this year. When interest rates rose, many could not afford mortgage repayments. During the present cost-of-living crisis, full-time workers — including public servants on reasonable incomes — are struggling to make ends meet.

Anybody can find themselves in financial stress, Ms Franklin emphasises. It is usually outside their control, and not due to poor budgeting. Often, people lose jobs unexpectedly, their relationship breaks up, or health issues make it difficult for them to stay in stable employment.

Housing and utility stress remain the two drivers of financial stress, Ms Franklin says. People use credit cards and ‘buy now, pay later’ products because they struggle to pay ongoing costs, and the confusingly myriad financial products on the market — also including payday loans, Beforepay, and Afterpay — bring them into debt.

“We help people to know what their rights are, and help get them into a better position, but we do it in a way that’s very respectful of the client, recognising what their own strength and ability is,” Ms Franklin said. “You don’t take over and start fixing it for people; you work with them, and you build their strengths and resilience.”

Private rental stress is “enormous”: student, single parents, unemployed, or minimum wage earners cannot afford private rentals. Although the ACT makes it hard for landlords to evict people, the only system to help tenants stay in their rentals was the Rent Relief Fund — which the government defunded in the last budget.

“It might be hard to evict them, but they’re still in hardship, and they’re still struggling to pay,” Ms Franklin said. “They’re getting further and further behind.”

Care has called for the government to restore Rent Relief, and led an e-petition, which 863 people signed. The ACT Greens presented it in the Legislative Assembly today.

“The people who received that support were able to stay housed,” Ms Franklin said. “It prevented people shifting into homelessness. While it wasn’t intended to be an ongoing support, it needs to be. There will always be people who need that, and the government needs to invest in that. They need to acknowledge that there’s a group of people who will always struggle. It’s their responsibility to support the local community. It’s not a huge amount of money, it’s not a huge number of people, but they really benefit from that very practical support.”

Care turned the grant scheme, which they administered, into holistic support: people who needed a one-off grant could also get energy vouchers, financial counselling, no-interest community loans, and legal advice.

Other measures Ms Franklin believes the government should adopt are more affordable housing and indexed concessions: the Electricity, Gas and Water Rebate is fixed at $800, but Ms Franklin thinks it should be adjusted according to prices, and the number of eligible people expanded.

“Government supported people through COVID and the cost-of-living relief,” Ms Franklin said. “My concern is they think their job is done and we’re moving on from that. But we’re seeing it isn’t getting better for a lot of people. Don’t just focus on the people for whom it is getting better. Acknowledge that there are still people really struggling out there.

“Canberra might be an affluent city, but there’s a lot of hidden poverty. We need to care about that; we need to focus on that. We need to make sure that when governments look at their budget priorities, they don’t devalue how important it is to look after everybody in our community. Don’t forget about those people. Make sure that there are always supports there for them. Care about those people, because we only thrive if everybody has the opportunity to thrive in this way.”

Amy Kilpatrick, senior legal manager at LegalAid and public interest advocate, will succeed Ms Franklin next month.

After her retirement, Ms Franklin intends to focus on her large family, and sit on panels and boards.

“I’d love to stay busy, and I’d love to stay connected to the sector, either through Care or through other organisations.

“This has been the most rewarding time at Care. It was a privilege and an honour to lead this organisation, and I really hope that it continues to flourish in the way it has over the last period of time.”