The plight of a gentleman seeking emergency welfare assistance as he passed through town last week has highlighted the high dependency on welfare in Glen Innes, and the need to make information about local resources available to the community.
Last Tuesday a man known only as Craig was travelling from Moree to Brisbane for medical treatment. His four-day stop over in Glen Innes while he awaited funds to enable him to travel onto Brisbane resulted in him seeking out emergency welfare assistance for food and accommodation.
In Glen Innes, the Community Centre, St Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army are the main welfare providers. Some church organisations in town also help with welfare assistance. Meanwhile Centrelink provide a number of payment schemes to assist people in crisis situations including crisis payments, special payments, advanced payments and an electronic benefit transfer, depending on staff assessments.
“Glen Innes Centrelink Social Workers and staff will assist people in crisis situations and can directly refer those in urgent need of food vouchers, petrol vouchers etcetera to local welfare oragnisations such as the Glen Innes Community Centre and St Vincent de Paul,” a spokesperson for Centrelink said.
For the month of September the Community Centre assisted 90 people. The centre provided $1910 in food, clothing and emergency accommodation, $1165 in phone vouchers, $1710 in electricity vouchers and $40 in fuel to those 90 people. Meanwhile St Vincent de Paul estimate they help between 80 and 100 families per month with food, clothing, furniture and household goods from community donated items and the sale of those goods in their Bourke Street store.
“Like the Salvation Army and the Opportunity Shop, we are the unsung heroes of the recycling process. People donate goods to us that they no longer want and we sell them in our store to help fund our welfare assistance,” Kerry Muir of St Vincent de Paul said.
All three of these welfare providers are funded with Telstra phone vouchers and electricity and gas vouchers from the government. Fuel vouchers are generally not given out unless urgently needed to make medical appointments in another town.
However acting Community Centre coordinator Bob Kelly said there are no emergency accommodation providers in Glen Innes, especially in regards to situations like domestic violence cases. Mr Kelly said the Community Centre or St Vincent de Paul can provide emergency accommodation for one or two night stays in certain circumstances but there are limited places in town willing to put people up.
“We need some sort of emergency accommodation in town,” he said. “But it all costs.”
The Centrelink spokesperson said their Social Workers can assist customers with temporary housing through the Department of Housing’s Armidale office, TIGYS (Tenterfield Inverell Glen Innes Youth Service) and Homes North Community Housing.
Criteria for people seeking welfare from local providers are generally a referral from Centrelink to gauge their circumstances with regards to income and payments.
The welfare providers can see any persons during opening hours, but also have designated welfare days and times. The Community Centre have designated Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays from 11am to 12pm for welfare, while St Vincent de Paul have Wednesdays and Thursdays from 2pm until 4pm as their elected welfare times.
More information on Centrelink crisis payments can be found at www.centrelink.gov.au or to speak to a Social Worker or make an appointment at the local office call 131 794.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff