Welfare Agencies and the Provision of Emergency Relief in Australia

FaHCSIA Occasional Papers

81 Pages Posted: 28 Jun 2013

See all articles by Jacqueline Homel

Jacqueline Homel

The Australian National University - Social Policy Evaluation Analysis and Research Centre

Chris Ryan

University of Melbourne

Date Written: June 16, 2013

Abstract

This report describes recent trends in the provision of emergency relief in Australia. Emergency relief includes material and financial assistance provided to individuals experiencing financial crisis. Usually distributed by welfare agencies, assistance most frequently takes the form of food vouchers or parcels, cash, and assistance with rent and utilities bills. The aim of this report is to describe whether and how the provision of emergency relief, as well as the characteristics of the people who were assisted, changed between 2007 and mid-2010.

The report uses data collected by three major welfare agencies over this period: Anglicare (Diocese of Sydney), the Salvation Army Southern Territory (Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia), and St Vincent de Paul (Victoria). Each of these agencies maintains detailed records of every visit to their centres that provide emergency relief services. Information collected includes the demographic characteristics of clients, the reasons for seeking assistance, and the types and amounts of assistance provided. The findings reported draw mainly on data from Anglicare and the Salvation Army. We use these data to examine: •the characteristics of emergency relief clients •their reasons for seeking assistance •the amounts and types of assistance provided •how these factors changed between 2007 and 2010.

The characteristics and needs of emergency relief clients have been extensively documented in a number of reports of emergency relief services over the past 20 to 30 years. The findings are remarkably similar across these studies, and the characteristics of individuals who sought relief from the agencies represented in this study are largely consistent with those reported in this literature. We find that emergency relief clients are predominantly: •female •aged between 25 and 44 years old •lone parents, or people living alone without dependent children •renting, either from a public authority or privately •receiving a government pension or allowance.

Like the existing emergency relief literature, the majority of clients in the data analysed here sought assistance because of immediate financial crisis. Although the specific factors or incidents leading to crisis are not well defined in the relevant datasets, a number of clients reported health and relationship issues as reasons for seeking emergency relief. This is indicative of the complexity of issues both underlying and exacerbating financial hardship within these vulnerable households. Finally, 50 to 60 per cent of clients were assisted more than once over the period covered by each dataset.

The longitudinal nature of the datasets permitted an examination of whether there were increases in the provision of emergency relief and/or a change in client base, with the onset of the global financial crisis (GFC). First, there were clear increases in the amount of assistance provided, as well as in the number of people assisted, between 2007 and 2010. This trend was apparent in each of the three datasets.

•Data from Anglicare and the Salvation Army suggest that the main increase occurred from mid-2008 to the end of 2009. This is consistent with previous observations of a lag between the onset of the GFC and increased demand for emergency relief (Swann et al., 2009).

•The forms of assistance that increased the most were the provision of food vouchers, assistance with utilities bills (e.g. vouchers), and cheques to assist with a range of major and minor expenses. Second, despite the increases in assistance provided, the profile of emergency relief clients was largely stable between 2007 and 2010.

•There were no significant changes in the characteristics of those who were assisted in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, family composition, housing or principal income source.

•The onset of the GFC did not see significant new inflows into emergency relief from more advantaged segments of the wider population who would not generally seek such assistance, such as tertiary students, non-welfare recipients, and home owners.

Overall, the findings confirm previous reports describing the characteristics and complex needs of individuals and households who seek emergency relief because of financial crisis. They also show that there was an increase in the amount of assistance provided to these individuals between 2007 and 2010, at least by the agencies represented here. Although it is not possible to pinpoint exact causes of this increase, it may be due both to direct effects of the GFC on levels of hardship, as well as to concurrent increases in FaHCSIA funding to emergency relief providers. The relative stability of the client base over this period, however, suggests that the increased assistance was mainly required by groups who were already susceptible to financial crisis prior to the economic downturn.

Keywords: emergency relief, welfare, financial management, global financial crisis, services

Suggested Citation

Homel, Jacqueline B and Ryan, Chris, Welfare Agencies and the Provision of Emergency Relief in Australia (June 16, 2013). FaHCSIA Occasional Papers, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2281026 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2281026

Jacqueline B Homel (Contact Author)

The Australian National University - Social Policy Evaluation Analysis and Research Centre ( email )

Research School of Economics
The Australian National University
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia
+61 2 6125 5096 (Phone)

Chris Ryan

University of Melbourne ( email )

185 Pelham Street
Carlton, Victoria 3053
Australia

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