Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
A collective of Auckland foodbanks has asked the government for ongoing annual funding for food parcels to distribute to those most in need.
Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said they have been given no assurance of such funding and are waiting to find out what is in Thursday's budget.
"This mission that I am responsible for, we are simply holding our breath, praying that food will be funded. The consequence of that food not being funded is very serious," she said.
"It's also a reality that every food bank in the country is facing, so there is no assurance of any funding for any food relief for any organisation in the country."
The mission is among a group of Auckland foodbanks that sent a closed letter to Minister of Social Development (MSD) Louise Upston ahead of the budget.
The Salvation Army runs 60 foodbanks and is among signatories, its food security manager Sonya Cameron said they need secure multi-year funding.
"We're really in a situation of not being able to plan, not knowing come beginning of July whether we'll have enough funding to keep going in terms of supporting people who are coming to our foodbanks."
Cameron said its direct government funding had dropped by two-thirds and they were waiting to find out what was in Thursday's budget.
"We're obviously really nervous, we've asked MSD if they can let us know as soon as they possibly can," she said.
"The concern is not just for ourselves but other foodbanks. We've already seen other foodbanks who've closed down or struggled to provide decent support and when others close down that increases the pressure on other foodbanks such as ourselves."
Foodbanks started to receive direct government funding in 2020 during the pandemic and over the following four years more than $200 million was invested in the sector.
Food security funding was extended with one-off grants to 13 providers last year including the mission, which received a one-off $700,000 from MSD for food parcels.
Foodbanks started to receive direct government funding in 2020 during the pandemic and over the following four years more than $200 million was invested in the sector. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Robinson said the mission has the staff and systems in place to distribute 50,000 food parcels and that funding meant they did not have to reduce food parcels by more than half to 20,000 - during a cost of living crisis.
The mission will have distributed between 35,000 to 40,000 food parcels by the end of June - each parcel feeds a family of four for three meals, for four days.
Robinson said it would cost an annual $30m for the government to meet the basic needs of people who are literally hungry.
She said many families did not have enough income to cover the cost of housing and were seeking food support.
"There is a whole range of people who are coming to us who are needing support for food," she said.
"It means that kids are hungry, kids are hungry when they go to school. It means mothers are doing everything within their power to get through a day on very limited food or no food."
Finance Minister Nicola Willis this month announced a $190m Social Investment Fund, which is part of a broader $275m commitment over four years to the government's social investment approach.
The fund would be governed by the new Social Investment Agency and was expected to invest in at least 20 initiatives in its first year.
It's not clear yet whether that includes food security initiatives.
Cameron said the Salvation Army is facing significant funding drops across all of its services at a time when there is increasing demand.
Some foodbanks have had to reduce their services.
"What we're already finding is a lot of them have had to reduce the number of days or hours that they're open and set timeframes for whanau coming back to limit demand."
Cameron said the organisation was seeing people struggling with the longer-term effects of hunger and malnutrition.
"They've got no energy, food consumes all of their thoughts due to their hunger and they're ending up with chronic health conditions, poor mental health."
Longer term, she said there needs to be a national food security strategy, such as what Australia's new Labour government is looking to do with Feeding Australia.
"We talk proudly about being able to feed 40 million people overseas yet we've got 27 percent of our children who are hungry here. We produce more than enough good food, we just need to keep some of it here," Cameron said.
"It would be great to see that this government starts prioritising feeding New Zealanders too."
Robinson said they wanted the government to enter the discussion about long term food security.
"How do we ensure that all people in New Zealand have enough food? That is possible within our country. We make enough food to feed 40 million of us," she said.
"So this is not about production of food, this is about the distribution of food and then particularly the distribution of income."
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