More funding needed for work with the most vulnerable

The Salvation Army supports more than 120,000 New Zealanders each year.

We help the most vulnerable to meet their basic needs to live with dignity and hope.

We not only respond to immediate and urgent need through practical help such as food parcels and emergency accommodation, we also offer wrap-around services designed to help get people out of poverty, permanently.

We rely heavily on government support for our many programmes, but this does not fully cover the costs of our services.

An example is the 40 percent shortfall in the funding we receive for some of our services with Oranga Tamariki; this covers our social workers for only two out of five days a week.

We are blessed to receive generous support from the public, however we know they want to see their donations used in our frontline work, not on covering overheads.

We have fantastic, passionate staff whose work is vital, and challenging. Our staff go above and beyond for our clients. We want to offer them wages on par with those offered in the public sector so we can continue attracting the best practitioners in the social sector field.

We support the findings in the Social Service Providers Aotearoa (SSPA) report by Martin Jenkins, “Social Service System: The Funding Gap and How to Bridge it”.

We know the demand for funding from NGOs is increasingly crowded, and we welcome other agencies working to end poverty in Aotearoa.

We are pleased the Government is working to improve the lives of those struggling to support themselves, but believe more money needs to be available for this essential work.