By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific
People running foodbanks in South Auckland say poverty is deepening among the Pacific community, and the high demand they are seeing is the just tip of the iceberg.
Persistent high rents and basic living costs, plus nagging debt, continue to leave Pasifika families facing tough decisions on whether to pay bills or feed their children.
As New Zealand gets ready to head to the polls on November 7, and the cost of living looms as the biggest issue for voters, the government has been touting its stewardship of the economy and signs of recovery.
But it is a different picture at the frontline of foodbanks such as Vinnies Tāmaki Makaurau – based in Onehunga – which is part of the national organisation of the Society of St Vincent de Paul.
Households from the Pasifika and Māori communities make up the majority of families who come to their foodbank or to access budgeting support, counselling, youth development or help with employment pathways.
“We used to see people come once every three months. Now we’re seeing people try and register with us and apply every week, every fortnight, and we just wish we weren’t the capability to do that,” Henry Elliot, a triage coordinator and financial mentor with Vinnies, said.
He said while housing insecurity, chronic illness, disability, mental health difficulties, domestic violence and other factors contributed to food insecurity, Vinnies did not have enough resources to meet the high demand.
The Onehunga base had 31,000 engagements last year — that is, people reaching out and getting responded to, either by phone, face to face meetings, online engagement, workshops, sessions, or programme participation.
Post-pandemic deprivation
According to Elliot, Vinnies has seen the level of need among Pasifika deepen since the covid-19 pandemic.
“Covid brought the need up, and then when covid kind of disappeared, and we were supposed to go back to normal lives, for lots of people their jobs were never there again; they had no work.
“Some of them still have no work, or they’re on part time, or their hours are cut. So while covid disappeared and the funding disappeared, the need for food did not.”
Meanwhile, the government this term introduced a host of sanctions on beneficiaries, which he said had left a number of people in the Pacific community needing help from Vinnies.
“Two three years into those those new rules, we’re seeing the effects. People are coming in unsure why their benefit was cut or why their benefit was slashed altogether, and then finding out that it’s because they missed a meeting, a conference, a phone call, and those sanctions that are imposed on them happen very quickly.”
A new survey by the New Zealand Food Network found that one in every three households is struggling to provide affordable, nutritious meals, with the burden falling heaviest on single parents, Pacific communities, disabled people and renters.
‘The gap is widening’
Vinnies Tāmaki Makaurau general manager Delphina Soti said it was increasingly clear that many Pasifika families were struggling to afford basics.
“Like we understand that the cost of living has gone up, inflation’s gone up, like all sorts of different things have gone up, but what people are getting paid is not going up,” Soti noted.
“So it’s 9 percent that rent’s gone up, and then cost of living — 5 percent. Then you look at income, Work and Income, our most vulnerable, 2.2 percent; and then you look at how much the incomes have gone up, it’s like 4 percent.”
She said that only about 16 percent of Pasifika in New Zealand owned homes, compared with 42.1 percent of all New Zealanders, while around two-thirds of Pasifika were renting homes.
“So if the rent is shooting through the clouds, their income is coming down, and Work and Income is coming down, what kind of planning is this as a government?
‘The poor are becoming poorer, and the gap is widening.”
This is echoed by Mangere Budgeting Services Trust CEO Lara Dolan, who said in each of the past two financial years, her organsation supported around 4000 families with food support and budgeting advice.
She said Pasifika made up 60 percent of those people.
‘Struggling big time’
“The demand for our services, financial mentoring services, has increased by 61 percent in the last two years, and the demand for food has increased by more than 100 percent, which tells me that people are struggling big time.”
Dolan said people coming to them for help were often working people drowning in debt and the high cost of living.
“Everything is getting more expensive but salaries of people are not keeping up with inflation.
“We see a lot of people who are ‘working poor’, like teachers, builders, and health care workers coming in.”
Because Vinnies does not offer food deliveries, people need to come to them to get the food packages. But getting all the way to Onehunga is too hard for some families.
Elliot said another barrier is the shame some Pacific people feel about reaching out for help.
“It’s that sense of shame or whakamā. So we try and provide that safe space where it’s as simple as going to a New World or a Pak’nSave, they don’t have to feel like they’re coming to a charity.
‘Weight off their shoulders’
“We notice that when we give them the food, a small weight’s lifted off their shoulders every time.
“Every time the person puts food in their car or in their trolley or whatever, that small weight is okay — ‘of all the problems I have in my life right now, at least I know I’ve got a meal tonight, and so do my kids.'”
Soti said Vinnies was probably only seeing about 50 percent of the families who were in need of help.
“We’ve had people here who’ve struggled to come here. We watch cars do ueys [u-turns]. They keep on turning around and going back until somebody goes. Henry goes out and waves them down — ‘come’. and they come trembling.
“They don’t want to ask, but they are connected to a whole lot of other people who are doing it tough as well. We reckon about 50 percent. We only see the tip of the iceberg.”
Community ‘come to party’
Vinnies gets some funding from the Ministry of Social Development, and then other funding from private sources and church donations.
Soti said Vinnies was grateful government support for its foodbanks, but it was nowhere near the level they needed.
However, the Pacific community has come to the party as much as it can.
“Amidst all of this, there’s so much hope. We ask our young people, ‘hey, you can be part of this food system, you can really make an impact’,” she explained.
“So they turn around and collect cans, and they don’t just collect cans. They collect to the value of $30,000 worth of cans,
Elliot said the sense of community is strong within Pacific people, which gives them resilience.
“I will say this: they’ve known struggle and poverty their entire lives, especially if they’re from New Zealand. So they know how to make it work if need be,” he said.
Families in wider context
“And while they may be shy to come to us because we are a Pacific community, they do know that the community will rally around people that need support in the long run, whether that be through their church or their village communities that operate here in New Zealand, or their families in a wider context.”
Soti said that in Aotearoa there was enough to go around — and that no one should go hungry.
“I think there is enough. You got people who’ve got billions, and then you’ve got people with absolutely nothing, and so it’s just thinking, coming back to human beings.
“Poverty seeps in when we forget that we belong to each other on a really human level. If we remember that, maybe it’s time to pull some of those resources towards those who don’t have enough of the blanket.”
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