Emergency Relief Program
CSF’s Emergency Relief (ER) Program has had its busiest year
in our Material Aid provision history with 9,565 instances of
ER provision (by our community interviewers) compared with
5374 in the previous reporting period. On top of this, a further
5,885 instances of non-pantry items were recorded, which
includes people who visit CSF to take bread, bakery and other
perishable items at reception - without necessariliy seeing a
community worker.
With the closure of significant meals services in Frankston. CSF
played a significant role in the Frankston Council facilitated
interim meal arrangements which included sandwich lunches
being made available from our reception space twice per
week. Thousands of sandwich lunches were provided over the
12+ month period and aren’t included in our main ER program
statistics.
In terms of our Department of Social Services (DEX Reporting)
CSF’s main areas of session assistance included food parcel
and vouchers (7,672), material goods (782), rent and mortgage
assistance (284), utility bills assistance (209) transport
assistance (204), and health care assistance (126). These
sessions all include an assessment with one of our dedicated
and highly skilled community interviewers.
Following the 2015 cuts to Emergency Relief Grant funding and
the move to competitive tendering for funds, CSF needed to
rise to the challenge of keeping up with increased community
requests for help with less funding. CSF’s increase in volunteer
numbers is in no small part represented by a growing number
of food program volunteers who have assisted CSF to grow
its in-kind donations from a conservative estimate of $96,823
(2015-16) to $216,716 (2016-17).
Included in this in-kind support is an estimated 19,010kg’s
in perishable foods and 8,542 pre-cooked healthy meals
between Avocare and Fareshare deliveries. Meanwhile CSF
volunteers and partners assisted with sorting and distributing
the remaining 14,918kg’s (mainly fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs
and dairy items). We would also like to pay special mention
to the Operation Larder team who continue to be our biggest
pantry (dry goods) contributors, helping us to keep our food
costs down and funds directed to other material aid supports
for people in need.
CSF has also been greatly assisted by Hocking Stuart in
Frankston, coming on board as an Emergency Relief sponsor
over the reporting period to assist CSF in covering the cost of
our ‘hot meal voucher’ program.
Community Support Frankston
Despite the additional assistance provided, CSF has needed
to direct more funds to our Food and Food/Clothing/Petrol
Voucher costs, Household goods, Removal/Storage and
Miscellaneous assistance for people in need.
We have also needed to direct more ER funding to assist
people with essential pharmaceutical, dental, optical and other
medical costs and remain on the lookout for an organisation
to become an ER ‘sponsor’ and help us to offset a majority
of these costs. The laundry voucher initiative has been well
received by increasing numbers of people in Frankston who
don’t have access to washing facilities and a community
partner (i.e. local business) to assist with these growing costs
is being sought.
Included in the $8,180 miscellaneous ER assistance are medical
costs and transport for sick clients and car repairs with a
growing number of clients disclosing that they have no fixed
address and have resorting to living in their cars for shelter.
This is reflected in our volunteer interviewer issues reporting
which shows a rise in accommodation related problems for
clients 1895 compared to 1250 in the previous year. A minor
category break down shows an increase in homelessness (649
compared with 336), high rental costs (278 compared with
157) and home eviction (108 compared with
68) - based on client instances.
There were 10,320 issues identified by volunteer community
workers in the 12 month period, an increase from the 6,988
issues recorded 2015-16. All major category areas have
increased in terms of issues reporting and can be referred to
on pg.9 of the Annual Report. Our largest major category area
is health related problems with an increase in alcohol, drug,
general and mental health related presentations. We’ve also
seen an increase in clients that disclose having no income,
insufficient income or have income issues relating to prison
release.
Our increase in issues reporting reflects our service having
become much busier with our volunteers having responded
to 24,490 enquiries from 11,423 client contact, or roughly
2 enquiries per client contacts. This is also an increase from
11,174 enquiries from 7,136 client contacts (1.5 enquiries per
contact) in the previous reporting period. In terms of material
aid encounters by gender, CSF had more female than male
clients but a higher frequency of male encounters that were
provided with ER assistance following an assessment.
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Annual Report 2017
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