Demand for food relief soaring in regional Victoria

Community houses across regional Victoria may be advised to stop providing food relief, if funding is not provided in next month’s state budget.

Tracey Moss of Eaglehawk Community House. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Community houses across regional Victoria offering food relief services may be forced to shut down, if funding for food assistance is not provided in next month’s state budget.

Neighbourhood Houses Victoria chief executive Keir Paterson said of the 400 community houses in Victoria, about 45 per cent were running at a deficit due to the soaring demand as Victorians grapple with the cost-of-living crisis.

“(The community houses) get ongoing funding from the state government to be open for 25 hours a week, but no funding for food relief,” he said.

“The volumes (of food provided by community houses) have increased from one tonne a day in 2021 to 10 tonnes a day last year … it’s just skyrocketed.”

Eaglehawke Community House in Bendigo connected with 28,000 people in 2023 through food relief or food assistance, up from 24,000 in 2022, and the demand is still growing.

Distributing around 200 meals per week plus 400-600kg of fruit and vegetables, centre manager Tracey Moss said that although they’ve been supported by “wonderful partners” in Foodbank Victoria and Bendigo FoodShare, the associated costs in providing food are taking their toll.

“We get charged for food from Foodbank Victoria at a minimal cost, but it certainly does stack up over the year. And Bendigo FoodShare charge us $12-15 each time they deliver, which is about three times a week, on top of a warehousing fee,” she said.

“We tried to downscale our support this year but the demand is still growing … we just can’t continue in this way.

“The human toll of discontinuing our food assistance program will be enormous.”

Bendigo Neighbourhood House. L-R: Minh Le and Annie Wan on student placement from Bendigo TAFE, Tracey Moss, Mel Baker and Sabine Young with Poodle named Popcorn. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Moira FoodShare co-ordinator James Rouel said they’ve seen a tripling in the number of people needing their support service, and have written an open letter to the Moira community to support the FoodShare if they can.

“We’ve gone from 800 residents a month reaching out to 3500-4000 a month in two years,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot more people coming through the doors who cannot afford the cost of living due to inflation and interest rates and things like that.

“But the second factor is that because of the increased demand, our usual resources out of Melbourne simply aren’t what they used to be, as their demand is increasing too.”

Mr Paterson said if food relief was not funded in the budget, Neighbourhood Houses Victoria would have to advise they stop providing the service, as the financial burden was too great.

“We understand there are budget constraints at the moment that the state has, but if feeding people is not a priority, I don’t know what is.”

Last week, the Allan Government announced a $2.9 million contribution towards providing Shepparton Foodshare with a purpose-built home, expected to be completed next year.