You are not the only one if, while living in Australia, you feel you are having difficulty coping with life’s mental, physical, financial, and emotional components. Along with the rising cost of living and the crisis in the rental market, there has been an increase in the demand for virtually every kind of social services across the country this year, and young people are taking the full weight of the impact.
Ask Izzy, the largest directory of hardship aid in Australia, set new milestones in the month of May with more than 128,000 queries logged for various types of assistance, including food, financial assistance, housing, mental health support, and legal support. Since the platform’s debut in 2016, this past month was its most successful by far.
In spite of sky-high profits made by supermarkets, the cost of food continues to grow, which has led to an increase in the number of people looking for assistance in obtaining food. In the past year, there has been an increase of over 800,000 such searches, which represents an increase of thirty per cent from the previous year.
More than 315,000 people searched for mental health support in the last year, which is an increase of around 33 per cent from the previous year’s total of 238,000 searches. This represents the second-highest spike in demand in the past 12 months. Just for the month of May, almost 30,000 were recorded.
David Spriggs, chief executive officer of Infoxchange, a technology business that does not operate for profit and is responsible for running Ask Izzy, stated that the data provided evidence of the growing inequality in Australia.
“We can see from the data that more Australians of all ages are seeking emergency hardship assistance,” Spriggs told VICE. “This trend is occurring across all age groups.”
“The issue in the cost of living is creating vulnerability and exacerbating intergenerational disadvantage for young people in Australia. We need to stop these loops in order to make certain that the number of children who are going hungry is not higher than it was ten years ago.
Spriggs stated that although vulnerable people of all ages were being impacted by the cost of living problem, the most severe effects were being seen by younger generations. Ask Izzy has a user base that is comprised of over 62 per cent females, and more than 25 per cent of users are under the age of 25.
“Young people living below the poverty line or requiring emergency assistance are more likely to be impacted by issues such as domestic violence and abuse,” Spriggs added.
In spite of the best efforts made by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to bring inflation down since the beginning of 2022, it has remained stubbornly high at 5.6% as of May, which is significantly higher than where the RBA hoped it would be.
The federal government sought to give the appearance that it was addressing the cost of living crisis in its budget for the fiscal year 2023-2023, so on July 1, workers making minimum wage and welfare beneficiaries both received pay raises. However, the wage increase lagged behind the rate of inflation at the time, which indicated a real wage loss. Furthermore, income assistance payments in Australia are still hundreds of dollars short of being able to raise people beyond the poverty line.
After the announcement of the budget, the chief executive of Mission Australia, Sharon Callister, stated that there was a clear aim from the government to lessen the strain for some, but that what was given was woefully inadequate.
“The lack of a serious move to address poverty by making substantial increases to JobSeeker and other income support payments is a sharp and continuing disappointment,” said Callister. “[T]here has not been a serious move to address poverty in this country in quite some time.”
Over the course of the previous year, homeless programs assisted more than 270,000 individuals. People of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander descent comprise of 20 per cent of homeless population but only 3 per cent of overall population. This disparity highlights the disproportionate impact that homelessness has on these communities.
This calls for a major increase in the amount of investment and leadership provided by the federal government above and beyond what has already been committed in order to greatly increase the number of new social and affordable housing.
The rising number of people in need of financial assistance shines a light on the multiplicative impacts of poverty, which can spread from one type of difficulty to several others.
Ask Izzy users who are looking for housing support may be directed to Launch Housing in Melbourne, which has seen an upsurge in demand for all of its service types this year. Launch Housing is a community homelessness support organization that was founded in Melbourne.
A spokeswoman for the organization told VICE that they are seeing an increase in the number of client contacts at all three crisis entrance points in Melbourne.
We are compelled to give priority to those who have the greatest need over others who aren’t at immediate risk of becoming homeless as a result of the continued growth of demand within the capacity that we have.
Launch operates a private rental assistance program that operates in a manner that is comparable to the federal Rent Assistance scheme. The program offers financial assistance to people who may be in danger of experiencing homelessness so that they can remain in their private rentals with dignity and independence.
Since this time last year, Launch has increased the typical amount that it contributes toward clients’ monthly rent by 25 per cent as a result of the skyrocketing cost of rent since 2022. This is in addition to the fact that the number of customers using this program has increased.
“For young people, it can mean that they become stuck in increasingly precarious accommodation because they cannot afford to enter the private rental market or move out of home into share households,” a spokeswoman for Launch stated.
