Invercargill Salvation Army prepared for end of wage subsidy

Sunday, 2 August 2020

Salvation Army director of community ministries lieutenant Veronica Rivett in the army's Invercargill food bank.

The food bank is packed and essential donations keep coming as the Invercargill Salvation Army prepares for the end of the Government wage subsidy in September.

But a Salvation Army financial mentor warns people may be too quick to take drastic financial measures when faced with hard times.

Invercargill Salvation Army lieutenant Veronica Rivett said just as many people were coming for financial mentoring as they were for the food bank at the moment.

The army was carefully keeping its food stock plenished.

“Because we know that when the wage subsidy ends, we’re expecting an influx of need,” Rivett said.

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“For a period of time I think people are managing, but at some point I think, with there not being a lot of work around, that there will be an increase in need.

“So with that in mind, we are making sure we’re full stocked, we’ve got enough staff in the food bank side for when the wage subsidy ends,” Rivett said.

The $11.9 billion Government scheme has been in place since March, and helped insulate 1.7 million workers and their employers from some of the economic affects of the coronavirus pandemic.

It was announced in early July that the scheme would not continue after September, prompting small business owners to call on the Government for an extension.

During and since Covid-19, Salvation Army financial mentor Darlene Coomer said there had been a 50 per cent increase in people looking for financial guidance and was currently seeing three or four people a day.

“But we’re going to be dedicating more time to it, because the need is there.”

She was concerned that people would react too quickly when the wage subsidy ended.

Many people sought a no-asset procedure, she said.

“Because it’s an easy way of getting rid of debt, or so they think, but it’s actually a mini bankruptcy.

“A lot of people will come to us saying ‘I have to go bankrupt,’ but there are so many other options,” Coomer said.

In 15 years of financial mentoring, she had handled about seven or eight bankruptcies.

But the food is the more visible part of the operation, highlighted by the freezer-container outside the Invercargill ministry.

Rivett said since lockdown, the Salvation Army had received as many as three pallets of specific food items, such as a pallet of meat, a week.

One donor had offered the army a pallet of pork a week for four weeks, Rivett said.

“When donors locally are really generous like that, we see who else needs it.

“Whoever we know is short of supplies, we send it their way.”

Southland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Sheree Carey told Stuff earlier this week she understood very few Invercargill businesses had applied for the Government’s second bout of the wage subsidy, because their income had not fallen by more than 40 per cent.

Carey said she had heard on the ground that Invercargill was “faring really well” since many businesses opened in mid-May.

Anecdotally, she said she understood businesses, including retail, were reporting good sales since reopening.

'The confidence, I think, is there, and I don't see that waning in retail either.'

Invercargill H&J Smith chief executive John Green and Stabicraft chief executive David Glen both said sales had been positive post-lockdown.

'There has clearly been a pent- up demand, it has been stronger than expected, which is due to the level of domestic tourism that has occurred,' Green said.

Invercargill company McIntyre Dick Business Advisors and Chartered Accountants told Stuff in early July there had been “limited carnage” from Covid-19 amongst its clients, after the firm provided free advice to clients about the scheme.