More Australians are going hungry now than at any other time in recent history, according to food charities struggling to help people as the donations they rely on plummet.
The queue for emergency food relief at a Southbank charity stretched for hundreds of metres on Sunday.Droves of international students formed a 200-metre queue at a food bank in Southbank on Easter Sunday, and food relief centres have opened in the outer suburbs and regions to serve new cohorts of the community in economic distress.
Paola Moreno, a Colombian international student, is struggling to pay her rent, food and tuition fees after she lost her job."We have rent, university fees, and food to pay for, but we don't have jobs," said Paola Moreno, one of the hundreds of international students who lined up at a Southbank relief centre run by Planetshakers pentecostal church.
In the queue with Ms Moreno were dozens of students in similar predicaments. Tuition fees have not been reduced as many have lost jobs. Volunteers at the Southbank charity said they were often acting as crisis counsellors to students facing the most dire situations of their lives.Credit:Before the pandemic, the charity served about 200 people a week. On Sunday, this number was almost 1300, and the group has set up sites in Pakenham, Lower Plenty, Ringwood and Geelong due to the growth in demand.
As more people have entered periods of financial distress, the quantity of food available to charities has dried up because supermarkets and other companies that usually donate food have not been able to stock their own shelves that were stripped bare for weeks.
paulsakkal Jobseeker- over $1000 per fortnight. Jobkeeper- $1500 per fortnight. I’m sure that’s enough to buy food. Enough of the hysteria!
paulsakkal Why don’t they any money saved up?
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