North East Community Assistance Project facing shutdown with funding smashed

For 35 years this group has assisted disadvantaged Adelaide residents but now the charity is on the brink of closing. Find out how you can help.

More than 7500 disadvantaged people across Adelaide’s northeast face ongoing food insecurity with a beloved assistance service facing permanent closure.

Hillcrest-based North East Community Assistance Project (NECAP) is operating week-to-week and day-to-day with reserve funds fully depleted.

The project has 7500 people across 50 suburbs registered on its database and all now face the prospect of not knowing where they will get emergency food supplies.

Project chairperson Karen Cross said the assistance group was hit hard by rising costs of living, maintenance bills and a drawn out resurfacing on the car park they share with a state-run childcare centre.

“We’re taking it week-by-week at the moment,” Ms Cross said.

NECAP secretary Tracy Williams and chairperson Karen Cross. Picture: Brinley Duggan

“It really is dire now.

“We can’t even give (users) an exact time because it could be at any point we have to pull the pin.”

The car park upgrade was to be done in eight weeks but that has blown out.

The impact of the works have seen NECAP’s source of income, an adjoined thrift shop, hammered hard.

From turning over $1000 each week, which would be directed into food for users of the service, the shop has had days where less than $3 has come in.

The project is wholly volunteer-run and has provided services to families fleeing domestic violence, people who are homeless, large single parent families and even individuals leaving prison who have nothing to their name.

The new year has delivered punch after punch with a busted hot water service and the building broken into in February – all leading to mounting operational costs.

NECAP volunteers Helen Gabriel and Karen Cross in 2021 after securing a grant to assist during Covid. Picture: Emma Brasier

With the rising cost of living and ramifications of the pandemic seeing their database increasing, Ms Cross said staff were having to tell service users they might have to look elsewhere for assistance.

“They’re asking us where can we go and we’re not sure what to tell them because there really isn’t much else in the area we service,” she said.

Ms Cross said one of the charity’s major efforts, a Christmas appeal that provides families with food and gifts during the festive season, would have to be cut back assuming NECAP was around at year’s end.

“Kids get to choose one present and it’s a bit sad that’s all they get,” she said.

“If we’re still open at that time we’re going to have to make it for families only this year, with children, because we just can’t get the funding.”

The group has set up a fundraiser to help them survive until the car park reopens and the thrift shop again brings in the money they need to survive.

It can be accessed through this link: gofundme.com/f/local-adelaide-charity-in-danger-of-closing.