Have you considered what modern poverty looks like, in Australia?
Affordable housing, sky-rocketing bills, and now food, is a serious issue for individuals and families, whether they are living on the margins or the working poor.
After paying rent, utility bills and hopefully putting some petrol in the car, food is the first necessity people are giving up to meet their competing living costs.
Our BaptistCare HopeStreet teams are seeing firsthand that food distress is on the rise dramatically, and people are in desperate need of low cost food, a free meal, or emergency relief to ensure they do eat.
We’re seeing single parent families, or families living right on the poverty line, who just can’t afford to feed themselves and their children. Lunchboxes go to school with little to nothing in them, and nutrition becomes a secondary concern to actually being able to access food.
Where complex family issues are playing out, single parents can sometimes be waiting on government payments for up to 12 weeks, giving them even less cash to work with as they try to feed their children.
For people living in boarding houses or who are homeless, the situation is exacerbated by having limited facilities to prepare or cook any food they can access. They experience a myriad of issues, and food just happens to be one of them.