Neighbourhood houses
Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (14:29): Victoria has over 400 neighbourhood houses employing more than 5500 staff and 6900 volunteers. The manager of Cheltenham neighbourhood house in my electorate outlined for me the essential community services and programs that neighbourhood houses provide: addressing poverty and disadvantage, combating social isolation, and improving mental and physical health and wellbeing. As funding has not increased in real terms for many years – that is, kept pace with inflation, wages and population growth – the sector has a funding crisis. With the sharp cost-of-living crisis, there is a rapidly growing demand for food and material relief. Neighbourhood houses have stepped up, and now, unfunded, they distribute 10 tonnes of food per day across Victoria. As demand continues to rise, without urgent support they will have no choice but to start turning away people in need.
I ask the Minister for Carers and Volunteers to advocate for allocating $18 million to the sector. This is not additional funding, it should be noted. Rather, it will reinstate funding parity that has been eroded over past years. It will fund food relief distribution, it will restore the neighbourhood house coordination program and it will continue adult and community further education programs. This is a modest ask with a great return on investment. The community value report shows that for every dollar invested neighbourhood houses return $6.80 in community benefits. We only wish that all government expenditure returned as much.