Anyone can find themselves in a situation that puts them at risk of homelessness if they don’t have the support to prevent disadvantage or the tools to get them out of a tough spot.
Foodbank WA is one organisation of many in Western Australia playing a significant role in the homelessness space. The foodbank provided more than 9.2 million meals to Western Australians in need in 2023 – 1.4 million more than the previous year – helping to keep desperate and disadvantaged people from slipping into poverty and homelessness.
“We enable households to change their expenses budgets by dropping food costs substantially. When people engage with our service, they can make significant savings so freeing up parts of a household budget to direct into rent or mortgage repayments,” said Foodbank WA CEO Kate O’Hara.
“We want more Western Australians facing budget pressures to think about us earlier so they don’t become cornered when they have no budget left at all,” she said.
The charity offers nutrition education programs which provide behaviour-changing skills for buying on a budget to help people change their thinking about buying cost-efficient food, minimising waste, and repurposing foods.
Foodbank aims to empower customers to help them out of vulnerable situations. “We support people struggling with homelessness in the many ways in which it can present itself – those on the streets, couch surfers, or in temporary accommodation,” Ms O’Hara said.
“We provide a wide range of foods that do not need access to a kitchen and the products we have available include personal hygiene products. We also support many charity partners that offer homelessness services. They then bring meals and hampers to those in need through their services.”
Cost of living across all areas is the major issue, Ms O’Hara explained. “Cost of living is impacting households with paid jobs income – for some there’s two incomes – but they just cannot keep up with growing housing costs, food costs, utilities and more,” she said.
“For some the trigger is when an unexpected expense comes in and they just do not have the savings to be able to pay the new bill and keep everything else going.”
Maeve Egan, CEO of the Motor Neurone Disease Association of WA (MNDAWA), said an unexpected financial burden such as the diagnosis of a medical condition like MND can have a “devastating” financial impact that can push someone over the line which puts them at risk of being displaced.
“Motor Neurone Disease doesn’t discriminate; it can affect anyone and the financial impacts can be devastating,” she said.
“Between medical bills, home modifications, equipment purchase and administrative costs, we have seen clients close to being displaced while they are facing the toughest battle of their life.”
Ms Egan said more financial support is needed to help those facing disadvantage and at risk of homelessness.
“If we are to work towards eradicating homelessness, we need to look broadly at the support offered to those facing challenges. Currently there is a significant disparity between the NDIS and aged care funding channels, leaving some individuals severely disadvantaged,” Ms Egan said.
