Canberra's non-for-profit community service providers and poverty advocacy groups have provided worrying evidence about people in Canberra struggling with the cost of living and service providers struggling to keep up with increased demand.
The Senate Committee into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia, chaired by Greens senator Janet Rice and attended by ACT senator David Pocock, heard from the ACT Council of Social Service, Roundabout Canberra, YWCA Canberra, HelpingACT, Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services and CommunityServices #1 on Monday evening.
ACT Council of Social Service acting CEO, Dr Gemma Killen said two thirds of organisations in the ACT reported cost-of-living pressures were the central concern and 60 per cent said access to affordable housing and homelessness supports were another central concern.
'Really dire'
"We estimate that there's a shortfall of 3100 social housing properties, and that we need another 8500 by 2036 to meet demand. The standard waitlist for public housing is 4.8 years at the moment and the priority waitlist I think it's 337 days, so close to a year for those at the top of the list. So it's really dire," Dr Killen said.
She also said support services were struggling to keep up with the increased demand, resulting in fewer staff.
"I think is really tricky, in the ACT specifically 59 per cent of organisations had increased difficulty in staffing or keeping staff in their organisations and as cost of living increases particularly in the ACT, it's hard for us to provide salaries for staff that means that they can live here in Canberra," Ms Killen told the committee.
YWCA Canberra CEO Frances Crimmins also said more Canberrans were struggling with the cost of living than ever before.
"Accessing superannuation, using local charities or selling valuable items was common methods to cope with financial stress. Insights like this reminds us of how many are close to crisis in Canberra," Ms Crimmins said.
"We recorded a 33 per cent increase to the pantry in 12 months to February 2023. That is increased by a further 50 per cent."
Ms Crimmins said the demographic of people accessing community services is changing, with increases in "the working poor", people who have jobs but still can not afford the cost of living.
"With this also comes demographic changes in our pantry members, typically users of the pantry have been older women in receipt of the age or disability pension," Ms Crimmins told the inquiry.
Men accessing services a 'canary in the coal mine'
"But we're starting to see an increased number of young men in regular employment with parenting responsibilities accessing this service.
"For us this signals a canary in the coal mine that things in are particularly dire for this cohort that would have typically been the most hesitant to ask for help."
Ms Crimmins urged an increase in welfare payments but said it should not be a "one piecemeal increase in entitlement" but instead "an opportunity for systemic review, payments levels, income caps and mutual obligation arrangements".
Ms Crimmins also condemned the government's decision to not continue funding a Fair Work Commission Equal Remuneration Order to pay support services staff, calling it a "direct cut to that front-line support".
"Without commitment to passing on the Equal Remuneration Order, in other words, the wage increase and indexation to the sector, that means that it is a $65 million cut in real terms for us in terms of employing support services," Ms Crimmins said.
"So we are deeply concerned ... for the ACT that's a $2 million cut straight from our specialist homeless support and that equates to people working in the front line."
HelpingACT President Mohammed Ali said although Canberra is seen as a wealthy city, one in 10 Canberrans currently need food assistance, and of the 40,000 who need it, 8000 are children.
Mr Ali also said the numbers of people who needed support in Canberra were likely higher than reported because not everyone was coming forward to ask for help, especially culturally and linguistically diverse people.
Unseen Canberrans in need of help
"HelpingACT also feels that there is even more demand in the community than is currently being met as many people in need of assistance are not coming forward and this is one of the problems with CALD communities, because of the language problems and other issues with them they find it hard to come out," Mr Ali said.
He suggested a short-term solution to the increased support needed was grants, similar to the ACT government's Community Relief Network scheme.
"There was a wonderful program of the ACT government, which was Community Relief Network, a similar sort of thing I would strongly recommend that either it can come in the form of a snap grant from the federal government for those families and that can be executed by charities like us, or it can be sport grants," Mr Ali said.
Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services CEO Julie Tongs said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Canberrans were "invisible people"
"The ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community is overlooked when we have inquiries such as this because there is a perception in the wider community that everyone in Canberra is well-off and living the great Aussie dream of owning a house, a car and sending kids to private school.
"I feel that there is social cleansing happening in the ACT. First Nations people living in poverty, living in overcrowded housing and if they're lucky enough to have a government house, they've been pushed out of built-up areas in public housing units in new suburbs where there is no infrastructure.
"Things are really, really crook in this place and I'm really really concerned that people are gonna start dying on the streets unless something happens."
The Committee will report its findings to the Senate on October 31.
The hearing was also attended by ACT MLA Johnathan Davis, who is chairing a similar ACT parliamentary inquiry to examine cost-of-living pressures.
