Members of the major city charity organisations talk about the tough year and the help the Winter Relief Appeal will offer. Video Rod Thompson
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00:00 Certainly in terms of the number of people that we can't help is as big a number as we've
00:13 seen before and so sometimes that's impacting on or giving an idea of the demand that's
00:19 there.
00:20 We're also seeing an increase in the number of people that haven't contacted our service
00:24 or any other service before, so people that are discovering or finding out about the help
00:30 that's available where they haven't had to need that before or they're finding their
00:35 circumstances so desperate that they're needing to reach out and sometimes that means they've
00:41 delayed that call so sometimes the situation's worse.
00:45 They're probably the bigger indicators to show that there's more people feeling the
00:50 hurt at the moment than before.
00:53 I think a bit like what we've said, people have not accessed our services before coming
01:01 through.
01:03 People experiencing family violence coming over to us and also younger mums and dads
01:16 coming in, finding it difficult being either part-time employed or not employed and paying
01:26 rent and looking after younger children is really starting to pinch quite harshly on
01:35 them.
01:36 Certainly so, at the moment we're currently seeing a lot of individuals and families that
01:39 we haven't seen before.
01:41 They might be employed or underemployed, they've never had to reach out for any type of assistance
01:46 in the past so it's a very daunting experience for them.
01:48 So if we can make it as easy as possible and provide those essentials with utility accounts,
01:54 food, just to make it easier to get through.
01:58 We're very thankful for the generosity of the community because it just extends the
02:01 supports we're able to give.
02:03 Often people come with one major presenting issue and I guess with the government funding
02:07 available we're able to assist with that.
02:08 It might be help with a particular bill, help for the weekly grocery shop but with the additional
02:13 capacity that the Winderit Relief Appeal provides, you can just extend the supports whether it
02:18 be with food assistance, whether it be chemist warehouse vouchers to help with some medical
02:22 needs, all of that type of thing to I suppose just really wrap around a lot of support for
02:28 that person rather than the particular presenting crisis.
02:31 To provide more holistic care, I think that's what we all do.
02:34 So very thankful as we all are for those funds.
02:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]