The latest Australian Tax Office data reveals Cranbourne was one of the top four suburbs in Australia most dependent on JobKeeper during Covid-19 lockdowns.
This is no surprise to Leanne Petrides, executive officer of Community Information & Support Cranbourne (CISC).
“During the lockdowns especially, we had an increase in the number of people coming to us who had not accessed support services before, and were on no income, or receiving JobKeeper payments,” Ms Petrides said.
“Not all of them have been able to return to work, and others have lost hours.
“The reduction from the doubling of JobSeeker payments has also had a huge impact, with many people unable to cover the basic costs of living on their Centrelink income.”
For almost 45 years, CIS Cranbourne has been the first port of call for many thousands of people needing help with financial, practical, and personal matters in Cranbourne and the surrounding suburbs in the City of Casey.
On many occasions during lockdown, CIS Cranbourne assisted families with essential emergency relief support for a period of weeks between their work ceasing and their first JobKeeper or JobSeeker payment.
Issues causing the most distress for people were maintaining housing payments and servicing car and other loans they had previously been able to afford, Ms Petrides said.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, CIS Cranbourne has provided emergency relief assistance on almost 16,500 occasions, financial counselling to 400 households, and counselling support to 345 households.
More than 50 per cent of households in that period were accessing the service for the very first time.
This is why CIS Cranbourne supports the Australian Council Of Social Service (ACOSS) position that JobSeeker and similar payments should be raised to at least $490 per week to lift households out of poverty.
In addition, with a workforce heavily dependent on volunteers, CIS Cranbourne is joining their peak body, CISVic’s campaign to lobby for state government funding for a paid Coordinator in every Community Information & Support agency.
This will enable the agency to continue to meet the escalating demand for help from community members, and to help with the full range of personal and practical difficulties that people present with.
While each year CIS Cranbourne directly helps almost 3000 local households, the agency can respond to a further 30,000 enquiries for information or support.
The organisation relies heavily on volunteers to provide a suite of support services to vulnerable community members.
Before the pandemic there were 25 volunteers, but the volunteer workforce has drastically reduced since then, to around 15. Meanwhile, people are presenting with increasingly complex problems.
