In the small, cramped space of a housing commission unit, Denny waits for his next visit from Vinnies. He rang last week for some food vouchers and has just had his social security payment revoked. It won’t be reinstated until next week.
Two volunteers climb the stairs to his unit. They have a sheet with notes on each of the people they are to visit today. The well-organised grids are typed with relevant information like: single mother, two children, on a pension. A note is next to Denny’s name. It tells the volunteers they must advise him to try ringing some other organisations for help, maybe give him some financial advice. The look on Denny’s face as they walk through the door makes the task particularly difficult. The volunteers attempt to soften the blow. They don’t know how to explain the situation. Eventually, they follow their instincts, apologise, give him some food vouchers and tell him to call whenever he needs help again.
The reason they have been asked to do this, is that the Society is forced to evenly distribute limited resources. Each week, Vinnies has to try and work out who needs extra support—who is living in poverty and why. The Society spirit cautions against labelling people as ‘welfare dependents’, and they believe in more than just a handout. They attempt to find what lies beneath people’s need, to assess what is causing poverty and isolation. And these values need to be stronger than ever, as requests for assistance in the last year have almost doubled. More and more, the Society has needed to allow for greater distribution of resources in the face of long-term unemployment and increased isolation.
‘We’re facing a bigger number of people that suffer greater financial deprivation,’ says Victorian State President of the St Vincent de Paul Society, Syd Tutton.
Coupled with this demand is a greater expectation of professionalism and indeed a push to ‘corporatise’ the Society. Corporatisation, while necessary, needs to incorporate the initial vision.
Despite a time of economic prosperity for Australia, volunteers are finding that government agencies no longer provide all the essential services for the most marginalised. Increasingly, governments—both state and federal—have moved to outsource support work to charity organisations.
The alarming increase in reliance on the Society is demonstrated in a 9.6 per cent increase in welfare requests for 2003–04. Further, there has been a 100 per cent increase in requests for