Recession hits city missions

Volunteer David Wiseman and staff member Miriam Koome serve lunch at the Auckland City Mission.

Requests for food parcels are the highest they have ever been, according to the Auckland and Christchurch city missions.

Auckland City Mission handed out 148 more food parcels this February than it did at the same time last year. In March it distributed almost 100 more than in March, 2008.

Christchurch City Mission is seeing the same increase in demand.

It has had to increase the number of food parcels it gives out from 20 a day in the middle of last year to 50 a day, now totalling 1500 a month.

Manager of social services Gray Crawford says there are people queuing outside the food bank from 8am.

Mr Crawford believes this is definitely a result of the recession.

“It’s no longer just the addicted, unemployed and mentally ill but low wage and recently redundant people,” he says.

“They just can’t make ends meet.”

Auckland City Mission team leader of fundraising Alexis Sawyers says they are also seeing a rise in first-time users of the mission’s services.

“More people are being made redundant and there are fewer opportunities for temporary and seasonal work,” she says.

“We’re expecting that the number of people who need to come to us will increase.”

The Wellington City Mission is also expecting an increase in new clients as redundancies continue.

Unlike Auckland and Christchurch, the Wellington mission is not feeling the bite of the recession as strongly, according to chief executive Michelle Branney.

Ms Branney says requests for food parcels are up but they are not as high as winter last year.

She credits this to people being used to higher food prices, as well as the mission’s emphasis on dealing with the cause of the problem.

“If they need a third food parcel they have to go into one of our programmes,” Ms Branney says.

“If you’re not coping, you need some other services.”

One thing common to all the city missions is the strain the recession is putting on their resources.

Wellington relies heavily on funding from charitable trusts but low interest rates mean trusts have less money to give out.

Both the Auckland and Christchurch missions are noticing a decrease in the donation of second hand goods.

Mr Crawford and Ms Sawyers agree this is because people are selling unwanted items on Trademe to help support themselves rather than donating them.

All the missions say they have seen a drop in the number of financial donations but stress that those who can donate are being very generous.

Tags: city mission, food parcels, global cities, recession