Coronavirus: Hungry families at 'breaking point' halfway through lockdown

Monday, 6 April 2020

Twenty people living in a three-bedroom house, parents newly unemployed and food rapidly running out – this is the reality of life under lockdown for many Kiwi kids, principals say. 

With schools closed, students are missing out on the food they would normally get at school through programmes like KidsCan and Fruit in Schools.  

Most children at Kimi Ora Community School in Flaxmere eat breakfast and lunch at school. Or put another way, 10 out of their 21 meals for the week. 

Multiply that by four or five kids in a family and suddenly parents have a lot more food to find, principal Matt O'Dowda said – and no extra money to buy it with. 

**READ MORE:

* Coronavirus: Thousands of kids could go hungry as schools close

* Principal describes 'heartbreaking' scenes of poverty

* Teachers are handing out hot meals to students - for some it's their only one**

The average income in the Hastings suburb is $19,600: there's not a lot of spare cash floating around to begin with. O'Dowda said a lot of parents work minimum wage jobs, sometimes two or three of them – or did, until lay-offs started. 

'It's really tough,' he said. 

'You struggle on what you've got now and then your income is halved but your rent is still due.'

When the lockdown was announced, the school packed up all the food it had left for the term, sending students home with packages of bread, milk, baked beans and muesli bars. 

That food will be running out by now, O'Dowda said.

On top of that, he said families will be struggling with the lack of space. It was common for multiple families to share a small house. 

'We have one family at our school with 20 of them living in a three-bedroom house and their family is living in the garage. That for four weeks is pretty bloody tough.'

​O'Dowda said he wasn't concerned about children's learning during lockdown, but he was concerned about the stress of families being on top of one another. 

'Does it matter that their reading level doesn't go up for three weeks? Not really, as long as they've got food and they're all safe and well.'

This week, KidsCan will deliver food parcels to 3000 families like this across Northland, Waikato, the Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, and Manawatū. Each package will contain enough to feed a family of five for two weeks, including pasta, rice, baked beans, bread and peanut butter.

O'Dowda said the packages would make a real difference to struggling families: 'Even the gesture of something arriving and someone caring – that will be huge.'

Principal of Levin Intermediate School, Sheree Garton, echoed that, saying whānau were at 'breaking point'.

She said her community normally relied on sharing: that might mean a leftover meal offered up on a Facebook group, fruit left at the end of the driveaway, a meal at church, gathering pipi and watercress at the beach and giving the extra away. 

'Those avenues for budgeting and cost-cutting have gone out the window.'

Garton said the teachers at her school had phoned around families to find out who was in need of help, and more than 30 will receive the KidsCan packages. 

She said in one phone call, 'the mother broke down and said she was a solo mum, had lost her job, still hadn't received the wage subsidy and that she was really dire and needing food.'

KidsCan has launched an appeal to raise $500,000 to fund the 3000 parcels. It is calling on the public to give $19 to help stop a family going hungry during Covid-19.

'We know times are tough for everyone, but we want people to imagine how scary this is when you live in poverty,' KidsCan CEO Julie Chapman said. 

'These families already lived week to week. Now, many have lost their jobs and they have no buffer.'

To donate $19 – or what you can afford – visit www.19for19.co.nz