Many Canberrans (including children) cannot access the food they need for a healthy lifestyle, due to the cost-of-living crisis, VolunteeringACT’s February report Food Insecurity in the Canberra Region: A Strategic Picture revealed.

Demand for food relief has increased on average by 25 per cent — for some services by 50 to 75 per cent — and the community sector, underfunded and financially constrained, is struggling to deal with the sheer scale of demand.

“The sector is in survival mode,” VolunteeringACT CEO Jean Giese said. “The amount of people who need our support continues to increase — not just in food, but across a range of domains. The community trust us as providers to be there, and to do what we need to do when it needs to be done. A restriction on our ability to be at the front line doing that work comes with serious consequences for Canberrans.”

Canberra, she explains, suffers from its stereotype: a city full of public servants, money, and privilege, where nobody has a hard time — but that, she says, is no longer what is happening in this city.

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of ACT households and employed people who were food secure — able to acquire nutritionally adequate and safe foods in safe and acceptable ways — decreased by 7 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

“It’s very normal now for people — whether they’re renting or have a mortgage — not to afford to put food on the table,” Ms Giese said. “People never think ‘It’s going to be me’; but one change in your life — poor health that extends over a period of time, or you’re out of work for three months — all of a sudden, it can be any one of us. It can literally happen to any of us tomorrow.”

Transporting produce has become more expensive, pushing the prices of groceries up. Food deserts have spread in Canberra: places where there are fast-food joints galore, but fresh fruit and vegetables are scarce or overpriced. More residents must choose between buying food and paying bills.

Even in Parliament House itself — where MPs and senators are on six-figure salaries — some staff cannot feed their families.

Two-income families who a decade ago would have been on reasonable incomes, who never thought they would have to ask for aid, are turning to the community sector for the first time.

“People like you and me are turning up to food relief services saying, ‘I need some help, I can’t afford to feed the kids’,” Ms Giese said. “Most of us, if not all of us, are working alongside people who are accessing these services.”

Community services struggle to cope with demand for food relief

62 per cent of community services say funding levels do not enable them to meet levels of demand, and less than a quarter (22 per cent) received enough funding to cover staffing costs.

Many services, in fact, receive little to no government funding. Of the 50 in the Canberra Food Relief Network — encompassing tiny street pantries, larger food services, big organisations for whom food is one component of a larger picture, and providers like food rescue charity OzHarvest and hunger relief charity Foodbank — only a handful receive funding from ACT or federal governments.

Often, services rely on volunteers giving their time or money, community donations, and partnerships with businesses and restaurants. Even then, volunteering and donations are declining, because people have less money to give, while food donations do not meet the level of demand needed, and all organisations must buy extra.

“It is a really hard time to deliver a not-for-profit organisation in the community, because the cost of delivering services continues to increase,” Ms Giese said.

“For those of us who are fortunate to have funding to deliver services, the funding isn’t keeping pace with the cost of delivering those programs, which has an unintended consequence of all of the community sector needing to restrict the way that we deliver services.”

Some organisations have reduced the number of people they support or the breadth of their services. Others are contemplating cutting costs by reducing staff or training.

Volunteers themselves are experiencing high levels of occupational hazard, and need scaffolding and support. Community services are often a last resort for desperate people; street pantry workers face distressed people who can become aggressive when they cannot get all the support they need, or are turned away. Other volunteers suffer vicarious trauma from listening all day to anxious parents worried how they will support their families.

“These pressures are getting harder every year,” Ms Giese said. “Things are getting tighter. The sector is full of some of the most remarkable people you’ve ever met — extraordinary human beings who turn up every day and make Canberra a better place. But we’re losing good people; they’re burning out. It’s not a sustainable system. We have to come up with a solution pretty quickly.”

How government and the community can help

VolunteeringACT has urged the ACT Government to provide appropriate resources and sustainable funding for the food relief sector.

The government’s budget investment of $10 million over two years was an important signal, Ms Giese thinks, that the government recognises the sector is suffering sustainability issues — but without a clear view of what comes after those two years, a short-term injection of cash will not achieve the desired results.

Independent MLA Thomas Emerson’s proposed Food Relief Action Plan — the bill passed the Legislative Assembly in February — is an important road map in how the government needs to invest in food relief systems and how other businesses and services in Canberra can be part of the solution, Ms Giese thinks.

“We don’t think it’s all government’s problem to solve: it’s a community problem that needs addressing.”

If you can, that might mean volunteering: helping at a local food pantry; making a financial donation; or buying non-perishable food to stock food pantries. (More information online.)

While volunteering helps others, it also benefits the volunteers themselves, Ms Giese explains. Volunteers feel they are working towards something important for the community. It is a preventative health measure: volunteering reduces stress and activates the brain’s reward centre, so volunteers feel happier. It builds social fabric; in an epidemic of loneliness, it gives isolated people a way to connect with others and a reason to get out of bed. It builds skills and experience on the CV for people wanting to enter the workforce or move to a different job. It gives retirees something meaningful to do, so they stay aligned with a cause and give back.

Finally, Ms Giese encourages people who need food relief to approach services; they will be treated respectfully and with dignity.

“We want people to come forward and ask for help. We don’t want people to be not able to put food on the table at the end of the day if these services are available to them.”

Visit VolunteeringACT’s Food Relief Services Guide for more information.