Salvos offer ‘place of safety’ amid rising stress and anxiety
This research showed that the top two issues Australians wanted the government to act on as a priority were the rising cost of living and concerns around housing affordability.
BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE
Two in three Australians agree the rising cost of living is impacting their mental health, recent data from Quantum Market Research shows.
While Australians face increasing personal debt, experiences of addiction and a decline in mental wellbeing, leaders at The Salvation Army say the organisation is offering compassionate, respectful, practical responses to those finding themselves at a crisis point.
AustraliaNOW statistics released by Quantum Market Research in July assessed a range of areas, including confidence in the Federal Government, economic optimism, life satisfaction and perceptions of mental and physical wellbeing among Australians.
This research showed that the top two issues Australians wanted the government to act on as a priority were the rising cost of living and concerns around housing affordability.
As high as four in five among those under 40 years agreed their mental health was being impacted by the rising cost of living, compared with 56 per cent of those aged 40 and older. Additionally, two-thirds of participants believed they would struggle to pay at least one bill in the following three months.
Salvation Army General Manager for Policy and Advocacy Jennifer Kirkaldy said mental ill-health was a cause, result and amplifier of every disadvantage and hardship The Salvation Army encountered.
“When we talk about housing stress or food insecurity, the words ‘stress’ and ‘insecurity’ are chosen very deliberately – the hardship we are talking about is not just the immediate disadvantage of living in unsuitable housing or not having enough food, it is also the constant time and energy taken up by problem-solving, fixating and worrying about not having basic needs met,” Jennifer said.
She said the two interventions that would have the most immediate impact were the reform of income support payments and housing. Jennifer said the Commonwealth Government needed to set clear and enforceable targets around the national housing and homelessness plan to address the supply of available, suitable and affordable housing options. She said even though this would require more coordination, it was entirely workable, and a key target would be that 10 per cent of the total housing stock was social housing.
“We saw during the [COVID-19] pandemic that a radical increase to income support payments had a positive impact on people’s wellbeing, including their mental health,” she said. “An immediate and significant increase in income support payments is needed.
“Obviously, there are steps that need to be taken to ensure that mental health supports are accessible, affordable and culturally appropriate for everyone who needs them. Ultimately, though, the best clinical mental health care in the world will not be effective if patients are leaving their sessions to sleep in their car, on the street, or in a home where they are not safe.”
Head of Community Engagement Major Brad Watson said his department simply could not keep up with the demands of families facing increased financial stress. He said Doorways services were helping about 10 per cent more people than two years ago, with unmet demand also increasing to about 24 per cent. He said statistics from Moneycare, which used a Kessler Psychological Distress Scale to measure outcomes, showed the impact that good support from financial counsellors could have but also demonstrated an undoubted link between mental health and wellbeing and financial stress.
He also echoed Jennifer’s sentiments that increasing social security payments, particularly Jobseeker and Youth Allowance, would create significant positive change.
“There is sufficient evidence to show that the higher rate through COVID actually meant that people could live with dignity and afford to look for work,” Brad said.
He said he had a message of thanks and encouragement to TSA frontline workers.
“Our teams do an incredible job every day,” he said. “We know they are transforming Australia one life at a time with the love of Jesus. We know whether it’s an emergency and our teams meet them at the house fire or evacuation centre, a financial pressure and our PAL team, case workers or financial counsellors are involved, or an ongoing issue that needs specialised support or care through a social mission service or chaplaincy – our teams show the compassion, respect, integrity, understanding of diversity and collaboration needed to change people’s lives.”
National Moneycare Manager Kristen Hartnett said Moneycare teams were currently unable to meet the demand for services, with team members finding it hard to turn community members away because of a lack of capacity. She said Moneycare staff referred many community members to local emergency relief services for immediate food relief.
Kristen said many community members were underemployed, with those in some regional areas who couldn’t access fly-in and fly-out jobs finding it difficult to obtain enough work. She said getting to work was hard for many in regional areas, with petrol, registration, insurance and maintenance costs taking a toll.
She noted that financial counsellors often worked on cases where there was insufficient income or community members faced mortgage and rental arrears. She said some homeowners, even those with small mortgages, sometimes had no option but to sell because of rising interest rates and were often caught in a tension between increased rental costs and keeping their mortgages.
Kristen said some community members living overseas had returned home because of the cost-of-living crisis, only to find it more challenging in Australia. She said the crisis was also putting elderly community members caring for family at risk.
“More adult children are returning home to live with their parents,” Kristen said. “The parents are coming to us as their adult children are not contributing financially, and whilst they were able to manage previously, they cannot absorb the extra living expenses that the adult children are bringing.”
Kristen said her team had also noticed an increase in addictive behaviours.
In the period between January and May 2024, Moneycare workers assisted more than 6050 people in financial need and provided more than 22,000 sessions of care to those in financial need.
Head of Social Mission Captain Brad McIver said while mental health impacts were often unseen, the cost was obvious in increased presentations to all TSA services. He said additionally that the increase in family and domestic violence often resulted from financial pressures and the ensuing strain on individual mental health and key relationships. He said the recent tax reforms legislated by the Albanese Government offered something, but perhaps a radical approach involving big business was needed.
“Homelessness, [an] increase in addictive behaviours, acting up and out by young people, the need for financial assistance and the lack of food security – all these are visible signs of the state of the economy,” Brad said. “The obvious answer is to treat the current economic crisis in the same way as we did the health crisis of COVID-19.
Increase Centrelink to a level where people can afford food and accommodation, [and] access health and mental health services. All options should be considered, but this would require the shareholders in large companies being willing to forgo something of self to benefit others.”
Brad said the government and the NGO sector could not respond alone and needed the help of the private sector and the broader Australian community. He said sadly the world often had a message of self-focus at the expense of others.
“We need to be prepared to consider our neighbour not as our competitor or a threat but as a friend, a fellow human being … created in the image of God with inherent value and worth,” he said. “Jesus shares in the Scriptures that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for God himself.
“In other words, we need to be more focused on the collective good than on what is good for me.”
He said TSA offered a place of connection, community, and safety where people could share their circumstances with people who genuinely cared. He said TSA’s commitment to journeying alongside others was more important now than ever.
“The encouragement for those at the frontline grassroots level of Australian society is this,” he said. “You are not alone; we are working hard to free up resources and advocate for broad-scale responses.
“You are the difference, even when you can’t offer anything but a listening ear and the offer of unconditional positive regard.”
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