Poverty in Palmerston North; previous report

This report is intended as a basis for the meeting over lunch with you on Tuesday, 9 February, and members of the Poverty Action Group

Further to the detail and stories concerning poverty in general in the city which were presented at our last meeting, comprehensive information is now to hand on the voluntary welfare agencies in the city and the issues facing them and their clients.

It is not new for the voluntary welfare agencies to be under stress from the demands for their services and underfunded, what is new is the scale of these pressures and the structural agenda that is driving them. This is putting the voluntary welfare infrastructure of the city at risk.

This is a major issue for the agencies and the sector. It is a much greater issue for the community as a whole.

The City Council is charged with responsibility for the oversight for the well-being of the city and its residents and re-iterating the advice of Morgan (Morgan, 1998), these issues are likely to undermine many of the aims outlined in the City Vision and the Council's Strategic and Community Development Plans.

It is important and becoming urgent that Council address these issues, particularly in view of the current restructuring proposals.

The voluntary sector has always played an important role in the city as groups have set up to meet a specific need. Recently, Government policies have meant that services provided by Government agencies have been reduced or withdrawn and left to the voluntary agencies to pick up as best they can. Funding for them to do this has not been commensurate with the increased workload this has created major stress and is currently putting a number of agencies, large and small at risk.

To assess the state of the agencies and the issues facing them and their clients, a research project was undertaken by Cindy Johns, a mature Social Work / Social Policy Massey University student, late last year. The findings have now been published in interim form and a copy of the report is attached.

While the report restricts itself to the voluntary agencies and their clients, the implications of its findings are of considerable importance to the whole of the community and should be of particular interest to the Councillors and staff.

As reported in the last report, the majority of the voluntary welfare agencies in the city are struggling to cope with steadily increasing demand for their services. ACROSS is coping with approaching twice its design capacity. The situation is made very difficult by the reducing level of funding from the major funders, especially government agencies, for their work.

Several agencies have been and are being forced to reduce staff as the level of funding drops. This leads to a major reduction in services at a time when the demand for services across the board is steadily and significantly increasing.

For a number of agencies, the funding crisis is putting the future of the agencies in jeopardy, even those with a significant independent level of income.

Another important issue is that volunteer workers are becoming fewer, with pressures on some to get more work to survive, and a number of potential and actual volunteers are constrained by the implementation of the "work for the benefit" Community Wage programme.

As the Government has introduced user-pays for many services, including health and education, reduced access for many people to these services, charged "market" rents for state houses, reduced its provision of social support and welfare services generally, many gaps in the services and support available to a large and growing sector of the community have developed.

The voluntary welfare agencies were never designed to cope with this situation, nor are they capable of it, even if they were adequately funded for what they are doing.

The well-being of a major section of the population of Palmerston North is steadily declining.

The indications are that this situation is beginning to spill out and become visible. The traditional signs of violence, crime and vandalism are on the increase.

In Highbury, the level of graffiti and vandalism against some of the shops has reached heights it has not seen for many years.

The factors driving this situation, lack of access to essential services, inadequate provision for low cost rental accommodation, rising unemployment and the downgrading of jobs, are all structural, and progressive.

The level of stress and poverty in our city is getting worse and will continue to do so as long as the prevailing context remains as it is.

According to the Council's Vision and Strategic Plans, the health, income status and general well-being of the residents are important to the Council if not its raison d'être.

It therefore has a statutory interest in these issues.

However, over recent years, the ability of the Council to deal with these issues has been steadily reduced and if the proposed restructuring proceeds will have very little if any ability to even monitor such factors let alone respond to them.

When solvent abuse and the Highbury Hoods became national headlines in the early 1980's, it was professional workers on the ground who dealt with it and removed the threats to the community at large. The Highbury Whanau Resource Centre is one tangible evidence of this approach.

Such field / community workers, including those from the Council, are much fewer in number and effectiveness, despite the increasing level of need.

Behind this is the reduction of staff within Council who are able to monitor the indicators of such developments.

The Low Income Sub-Committee is meant, among other things, to assess the impacts of Council policies on low-income people. It and its predecessor have never able to do this in any meaningful way. Thus the impacts of council policies on a large sector of the community are never assessed.

This situation is particularly critical when it is considered that the current restructuring will mean an increase in charges to residents. This will have a major and detrimental effect on all of those on low incomes in the city - of the order of half, with a high proportion of these already lacking essential well-being services.

The current restructuring will place the Council and its staff at an increasingly remote position with respect to the residents of the city whose well-being is one of its fundamental responsibilities.

In addition to the points raised and recommendation made in our last report concerning the:

• The reinstatement and expansion of the Social Report
• developing a set of Progress Indicators
• adopting a more comprehensive set of Community Development Goals and Outcomes
• restoring the mode of operation and composition of the Low Income Sub -Committee
• referring the paper and supporting material to all Council Committees and the City Manager

we consider it important that Council not withdraw further from community development and involvement, both in terms of its staff and programmes.

The issues outlined above cannot be left to the voluntary sector and the voluntary welfare agencies to deal with as they are way beyond their scope, and that of the Community Services Council. They are not capable of having their workload further increased.

They need considerable and increased support, particularly in the area of advocacy on their behalf.

The capacity of the Council to monitor conditions in the wider community must be increased rather than decreased along with its capacity to deal with situations as appropriate before they get out of hand and have impacts across the city.

The proposal to put major Council services into profit driven LATEs with the provision of services contestable and user pays, will have major, negative impacts on at least half of the population of the city and from this to the remainder, and will significantly add to the number of those experiencing real hardship and poverty in the city rather than fulfil "the aims outlined in the City Vision and the Council's Strategic and Community Development Plans"

These impacts and issues need to be assessed, evaluated and considered before the proposed changes are proceeded with.

Cindy Johns, 1998. The Voluntary Sector in Palmerston North and the issues facing them and their clients. Unpublished report from BSW placement

Dennis Morgan, 1998. Latest Research on Income Inequality. Report prepared for the (PNCC) Community Development and Health Committee, 14 August.

Ian Ritchie
for the Poverty Action Group

www.wairaka.net/ubinz/IR/PovertyPN2.html