<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/03/inequality-is-deepening-demand-for-australias-support-services-rockets-as-cost-of-living-bites>
"Isis Khalil has spent years of her life trying to help people navigate through
poverty. A financial counsellor, she has seen how quickly people’s lives can
collapse around them through no fault of their own – and the devastating
effects that unexpected debt or a sudden change of circumstances can wreak on
whole families.
But with the cost of living increasing, helping people out of hardship is
getting more difficult.
“People are now in a worse position than they were when I first met them,”
Khalil says.
“I’ve got clients with very complex circumstances – some of them I’ve had for a
few years because their situations are so complex. I work with people who are
experiencing or in the process of becoming homeless because their rent is going
up so much that they cannot afford to pay it.
“It’s so much more complex than just increases in petrol and food. And the
cost-of-living situation at the moment makes everything so much worse.”
The need for help is only rising. Ask Izzy, a free online directory for support
services around Australia, has found searches for assistance on its platform
skyrocketed in May to the highest levels since it launched in 2016.
Run by the tech not-for-profit Infoxchange, Ask Izzy provides the public with
information and contacts for services relevant to their needs and in their area
– everything from housing assistance and legal representation to public
toilets.
In May, people searched Ask Izzy more than 170,903 times – the largest number
of monthly searches on record. About 14% of those searches – or 23,918 – were
for food relief alone.
The search rates have gone up over the last 12 months too: there were 1.736m
Ask Izzy searches over the past year, compared with 1.631m in the preceding
12-month period, an increase of 6.4%.
Ask Izzy’s search data also suggests the need for mental health support
services has grown significantly, with 316,343 searches for mental health and
wellbeing assistance in the past 12 months, compared with 238,000 in the
preceding 12-month period – an increase of 33%.
More than half the searches overall last month were for hardship-related
assistance, including food, financial assistance, emergency relief and material
aid.
Infoxchange chief executive, David Spriggs, says the data just adds to the
compounding evidence that the cost-of-living crisis is pushing more and more
people to the brink."
Note: I worked for Infoxchange for five years.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
