00:00Autumn Afternoons Outdoors are a routine for Skylie Taylor and her kids, the fresh air
00:11offering some breathing room in a cost of living crisis. Taking my daughter to the park like
00:19just think that's the only thing at the moment it doesn't cost money. The burden of household
00:23expenses weighs heavily on the 24-year-old Canberra mum. I was scraping by to feed everyone.
00:31I think I probably would have been in hospital from being malnourished myself,
00:35putting all the kids first and not feeding myself. So yeah, scary place to actually think of.
00:41Last year she started looking after her younger sisters but extra mouths brought extra costs.
00:48She turned to local food pantries to get by. It was hard to reach out for the help.
00:55I felt like I couldn't do it on my own which isn't a great feeling being a mum and a sister.
01:02As families feel the squeeze, so too do frontline services.
01:06Are you on the list? Otherwise write your name. Just over the ACT border, crowds queue each week
01:12at this Queenbeyan community centre to get their hands on donated groceries.
01:17Just one lot of meals. Hot meals are also in hot demand.
01:21In the last 18 months with the housing crisis but also with the cost of living,
01:27we are finding there are people that we wouldn't have necessarily seen beforehand.
01:32New figures from food rescue organisation OzHarvest shows 77% of charities around Australia
01:39have experienced a surge in people seeking food in the past year.
01:43Families are having to make decisions as to whether to pay the rent,
01:48pay the electricity or feed the family.
01:50The OzHarvest data paints a bleak picture of the cost of living crisis in the nation's capital.
01:57Of those seeking food relief around Canberra, 37% are doing so for the first time.
02:03It's the highest rate of anywhere in the country and the new faces are taking charities by surprise.
02:09It's people who have mortgages. It's people who have double incomes.
02:14And so I think in Canberra the general wealth that we experience here often means that we don't
02:22notice this level, this layer of need in our community.
02:25Charities say the sector needs more funding to fight food insecurity.
02:30Thanks so much mate.
02:31But addressing underlying causes of poverty will take bold solutions.
02:36Considering we're supposed to be the lucky country,
02:39for a lot of families it doesn't feel that lucky.
02:42Canberrans falling through the cracks, hungry for change.
Comments