Toowoomba’s charity services feel cost-of-living crisis

Spaghetti on good days, two-minutes noodles on bad days: The cost-of-living crisis is striking regional Qld residents above the bottom line, with charities on the front lines asking who will be next.

Loaves and Fishes Care Service Toowoomba CEO and site manager Kylie Jennings with goods just unloaded from their truck as cost of living pressures increase, Wednesday, October 23, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Community services across Toowoomba are spilling the beans on how cost-of-living and housing security has ventured well past those most vulnerable, encroached onto one and two-income households, and is now pinching at their ability to care.

“We are struggling to keep our doors open,” Loaves and Fishes Toowoomba CEO Kylie Jennings said.

She was standing under a marquee frying sausages in the car park between their op-shop and Newtown’s Hill St pre-polling booth, where a number of political candidates were handing out how-to-vote cards.

Taking advantage of sales from the pre-polling democracy sausage market Ms Jennings said the social business had been surviving week to week, often getting by with the generous help of SecondBite.

Prepoll for the Queensland election at Newtown Shopping Centre, Wednesday, October 23, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Last week Loaves and Fishes’ 14-pallet truck broke down just as it was about to head to Charleville, and it was under pressure and a sense of urgency they got it fixed in time to ensure the only food hamper service was delivered.

Since November last year, each week they’ll head out to a town west of Toowoomba, either Charleville, Thargomindah, Cunnamulla, Chinchilla, and St George, she said.

“People out there are spending $6-7 for 2L of milk,” Ms Jennings said.

The selling price for a bottle of shampoo was $18, she said, after the Thargomindah IGA burnt down in 2022.

The IGA only reopened in August this year.

Kylie Jennings unloads the truck at Loaves and Fishes Care Service Toowoomba as cost of living pressures increase, Wednesday, October 23, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Centenary Heights resident Jackie Maybury, who is currently on a disability pension, said on good days she’ll eat spaghetti, “on bad days it’s two minute noodles”.

The 30-year-old currently lives in a rental unit, and said she is lucky to have her rent subsidised by St Vincent de Paul, received after a six month wait.

The end of next financial year, she’ll have to fork out the full market rent herself – $340, or 80 per cent of her income.

Of the Queenslanders accessing their services, St Vincent de Paul estimates on average 66 per cent of income is spent on rent.

Covering rent just to avoid homelessness has become increasingly common, St Vincent’s Toowoomba regional president Peter Cavanagh said.

Peter Cavanagh of St Vincent de Paul Society said covering families rents for a time has become more common a service to avoid families becoming homeless if the lose their income for a short time. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“Vincent de Paul helped one family by paying their rent ($900/fortnight), simply because there was nowhere else for them to go and we knew that if we didn’t, they’d be out on the street with a brand new baby, a little child and a sick husband,” he said.

Community services across the city echo similar stories.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Lifeline Darling Downs CEO Rachelle Patterson, as Toowoomba vacancy rates have sat between 0.4-0.8 per cent for the last year, far lower than the healthy 3.3 per cent.

“Having a job is not a guarantee you won’t need further support,” she said.

Today, the cheapest average rent is a 2 bedroom unit at $340/week, that was how much weekly rent was for a 3+ bedroom house at the higher priced end, only three years ago, according to SQM Research, a leading residential property market data website.

“We’re now seeing our long-term donors turn to us for help,” said Tiff Spary, founder at Toowoomba Base Services.