The term poverati was used derogatively towards antipoverty activists on Twitter a couple of years back. It’s meant to deride – to poke fun at a group of people doing their best to find community through shared experience of poverty. I first heard it from a think tank member claiming to be working in the interests of poor people in this country. So, we reclaim it, and use it for a little fun ourselves.
The #PoveratiXmas will be observed on Twitter and Blue Sky this year with a thread being posted on today on each site for community members to post their wishlists and pay links so that hopefully some benevolent fairies will come through and fund some wishes.
It’s up to the individual whether they participate. You can be on welfare or not, there’s plenty of people struggling on low incomes, with disabilities or as carers and many reasons out there so don’t be judgy of others xoxo
Please, if you have the means, try to fund a wish and share with your communities so that more people can have their wishes funded.
Wishes can be anything from groceries to fun things like computer games. Anything to make this life and season more bearable to the #Poverati
I had a request to post a different kind of wishlist here:
If you can help this person, comment below or email me phonakins@gmail.com and I’ll forward it onto him!
TFIF, am I right? And that the pollies have headed home for the summer break after a chaotic final week, and maybe we’ll get some respite from their pontificating until that election is called/ Rumours around say it’ll be in March, others say it’ll drag on til the usual May.
Food banks don't solve poverty and hunger, they are just a more expensive way to get food that isn't necessarily suitable to to poor people. Raising welfare will help from the bottom up, tax cuts do nothing for the poorest in their country.#RaiseTheRate#88aDayhttps://t.co/DkVqYiQEMV
To follow up on my last post “Just because it’s better than nothing, doesn’t make it “good”, we head back to the food banks as the summer heat and humidity really kick in, and summer shutdowns approach. The charities themselves are also in rush mode, soliciting donations how they can while getting out the Xmas hampers to those needing the support.
But let’s break down that process a little.
Which is what gets me, they ask for direct donations, get corporate volunteers, have other volunteers, food is MOSTLY donated, and yet they have the audacity to onsell it to the local food pantries and then some of THEM mark it up to fund their services https://t.co/z0wfApBmYN
Foodbank™ charges the local charities and food pantries for the hampers and food items they get from them. It’s usually $25 for a prepacked hamper, whether Xmas or through the year, and (often extremely short dated) groceries are sold and the locals then generally on sell them a little above their cost, but sometimes for more. This can be to the point where it’s cheaper to buy items from regular supermarkets, at least on special.
They rely on the labour of volunteers – at the warehouses it’s often corporate volunteers, there paid by their regular employer, often a big (?tax avoiding) business. As do the local charities, but they’re well meaning locals, church members or someone who used the service and isn’t doing as bad as others at the moment. This labour is “free” to the charities, and most people want to be there (though we do hear of work for the dole at foodbanks) but it’s still labour.
“The hampers feature over $70 worth of groceries that will help the recipient create several meals and snacks – breakfast cereal, soup, pasta, noodles, tinned goods, milk, coffee, tea bags, biscuits, etc.”
Emergency hampers are funded by what ever the local charities can get together. SRU asks directly for $25 from supporters to buy a hamper from Foodbank. Vinnies asks for $72 so they can purchase their own for their clients. Foodbank also asks for $35 donations for hampers, again is this on top of the $25 they charge the local charities, any donations made by corporations, through telethons and ones at the checkout. They and other food relief charities like Ozharvest regularly are mentioned by politicians as receiving a block of funding to rent a new warehouse, while not mentioning WHY people can’t afford to just purchase their own food.
The food is standard fare – pasta and vegemite, weetbix and UHT milk and the like. The Christmas ones are similar but with tinned ham and pudding and custard. Not exactly allergy friendly for my many gluten or dairy intolerant folks. All these items are purchased outright it seems for the hampers, they’re well in date and consistent in brands, though it’s possible some of the companies make specific bulk donations. Unlike the stuff that comes from the Supermarkets – the close to date foods or experimental foods that haven’t sold and Colesworth can write them off as donations rather than copping the loss because they purchased incorrectly. Don’t worry, it’s not coming out of their profits.
Then we get to the fresh produce. I picked up some bread from my local food pantry Wednesday, and threw it out Thursday because it was moldy. This heat and humidity is terrible, but the bread was best before the 24th, so for it to turn by the 28th is not all surprising. It’s a pain, and fortunately I could afford replace it with a fresh loaf when I was out last night, but for others that means no bread til Monday or Wednesday when the foodbank is open again. Freezing it as soon as I got it home Wednesday would just have meant I’d be having bread that was not yet showing mold. Yum Yum.
And this is why I scream just give people enough money to feed themselves the food they want when they want it. Raise welfare above the poverty line so people can afford fresh bread that lasts more than a day before turning. So they can buy allergy-friendly foods. So they can choose the fruit and veges and snacks they are their kids actually like to eat. Channel all that extra government funding for warehouses and transporting old food around the country into welfare payments and programs that actually support people. Give them free childcare rather than free weetbix. Tax the supermarkets and the resources companies more so they can directly fund these thigns rather than them pretending to be the good guys by writing off excess food and donating cash and staff labour and getting to put their little logos on things.
Major reform is needed, but you can start by giving people enough money to live.
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Added later cos OMG:
Gonna say it again: if your food relief charity relies on Work for the Dole labour to stay open, it's time to immediately rethink your entire operation pic.twitter.com/yINqIvJfyb
Oh hai there, just screaming into the void that the messaging coming out from yet another report detailing the material deprivation faced by people on all welfare payments.
ACOSS has just dropped their latest Poverty and Inequality report Material deprivation in Australia: the essentials of life. It doesn’t just report on how much money people have, but also what people are not getting because they can’t afford it – covered by the surveys I discussed in this post when I was doing the Poverty course through ACOSS and UNSW – the same people conducting this study and writing this report.
“The most common items people said they lacked because they couldn’t
afford them are: home contents insurance (8%), at least $500 in savings for
an emergency (7%), comprehensive motor vehicle insurance (5%) and dental treatment when needed (4%).”
Yeah, I have none of those things. If I needed dental treatment I’d try the NSW health clinic as that’s an option, or I’d ask family for money to help pay, or put it on ZipPay or get a Centrelink advance, but I don’t have the funds for such things as routine. I said to others doing that course that as much as they’d hope the person crashing into them in their shitbox at least had third party property insurance to cover their car’s damage, the reality is we often don’t, Greenslips for injury are compulsory but you’re making a huge assumption that we’ll be able to pay for your damage.
But it’s the messaging around this report and others that always gets me. The report straight up says that DSP and Carer’s payments leave people struggling, and yet ACOSS et al come out asking for payments to be raise to that level – the $82/day for a single aged or disabled pensioner leaves them below the poverty line and skipping meals, health care and cheaping out on cooling in this heatwave while trying to stay in a likely substandard rental.
Reactivated my bedroom thermometer last night – you can pinpoint when my partner put the air con on in the living room and it trickled down the hall to our room
So aim higher. Ask for an amount that will make a difference. The Henderson Poverty Line is around $87 a day (it fluctuates, but if you need to put a number on it). This doesn’t take into account the extra costs of being disabled or chronically ill, but again it’s a start for adults to have enough money to meet their basic needs.
We have an election to be called any time now (it’ll be by May and that’ll be here before we know it) so get your ducks in a row and ask for good things, not incremental “improvements” that leave people in poverty. They haven’t given you your meagre asks anyway. Maybe Labor will be desperate enough to actually promise something progress, Miles style?
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Today we visited CareNet in Templestowe, a remarkable organisation tackling food insecurity by making nutritious food accessible to those in need. pic.twitter.com/olT7JFbQNC
Who doesn’t love them some carbs? Well, coeliacs and other gluten intolerant people would have a hard time with this basket of goodies Dutton showed off over the weekend. As would anyone who’s just relying on whatever comes in their $5 or $10 hamper this week. One thing about the hampers is while they are technically “value for money” and can have like $100 of food in them if it was in date at at retail price, you don’t get a choice of what to get, and while you can make up some meals, there’s plenty missing. Often it’s proteins – you might get some tuna or some chick peas, or it’s fresh items just aren’t there. Luck of the draw, or being able to get to the right place at the right time of the week and able to carry the items on public transport or have a car.
ABC are running a fundraising drive for Foodbank this week (month?) and the articles that have referenced it so far have not called for the obvious – an increase to the base rate of income support payments. This one uses the example of a disability pensioner who also works part time being a foodbank user. This story has older pensioners and talks about them supporting extended families when they can visit the foodbanks.
I’d like to thank Dutton for his foodbank visit this week. It allowed us to point out that Foodbanks often charge for their food. (the laws vary by state). It also let us discuss the lack of nutrition in the hamper he was holding, and how while this may fill a hungry belly, it’s no good long term. Some on twitter said it was the basis of meals and that then people could get their own meats or vegetables or other “Extras” needed to make a decent meal. Friends who’ve had malnutrition on welfare promptly went to remind them that if people are needing to get free pasta, they’re not likely to have money for meat or veges or anything fun like that.
The Christmas season is upon us, and I’d like to put out there that the hampers that your local charity is giving to the needy is usually paid for by the charity. Standard cost to the local charity is $25 for a Foodbank hamper. One local place is passing on $5 of that to the recipients this year. Another place told me last year they were passing on $20 of that to those who could afford it while giving some for free. I don’t know if the $35 ones that Foodbank is directly asking for donations for are different to that or not.
2023’s Foodbank hampers
So yeah, frustrated that the articles asking for Foodbank money donations don’t call for an increase in welfare payments. And that a girl can’t live off carbs alone.
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People are doing amazing work out there. The Antipoverty Centre filed their submission to the national Suicide Prevention Strategy. And it’s good. And you’ll read it and nod your head at the content and shake your head at the lack of action from governments and lip service from supposed support organisations. It’s here. There’s facts and stats and stories and it’s all there, screaming to governments to Rise the Rate of Welfare and build public housing and get rid of partner income tests to help people to get out of abusive situations and have independence within relationships. Agency is important and people are feeling helpless and are driven to despair. And suicide is certainly a more appealing option for some that continuing in a punitive welfare situation.
Thankyou for putting that together. And for acknowledging the frustration that people are experiencing with telling their stories over and over and pleading for the dignity of being listened to, when 2.5 years into government, they decide not to respond to the DSP inquiry since it’s been so damned long since the recommendations were made, which is certainly not one of the principles of TREATING PEOPLE WITH RESPECT that was recommended.
meanwhile, apparently social security debts from the seventies are fair game, even though 6 years was said to be plenty long back to expect people to defend debts. But you know, why respect the recommendations from millions of dollars and thousands or hours of paid and unpaid work by experts and lawyers and people on the ground. Fuck us, right?
According to a question on notice response from Services Australia last year, they were at that time pursuing so-called debts from welfare recipients all the way back to 1979 (and presumably still are, unless they somehow managed to recoup that one). https://t.co/3AaIJcNoLX
It’s more than two years since that qanda episode where I got to ask about our dear Treasurer when things might get better, and really nothing has changed. Rent keeps going up, as does every other cost, including out of pocket GP expenses and more. But yeah. Go red team?
Jim Chalmers spruiked the simplicity of his first budget, but as the price of items rises faster than the rate of welfare – is it really ‘bread and butter’ for struggling households? #QandApic.twitter.com/p0eECVajlR
I’ve had to put some boundaries in place to help manage my sanity, I’m going to respect my bedtime and meds times more, even if that means other people have to do more for themselves.
"People in poverty are the most important stakeholders in the policies that affect our lives… But welfare recipients are weary of constantly placing our lives and despair on the record, only for politicians to discard us and move on." https://t.co/Ra6Iwu1cNs
But it’s the messaging around this report and others that always gets me. The report straight up says that DSP and Carer’s payments leave people struggling, and yet ACOSS et al come out asking for payments to be raise to that level – the $82/day for a single aged or disabled pensioner leaves them 
