The Star reached out to several Dunedin charities and food banks for their take on the increasingly grim situation for those who have the least, as the cost of living crisis continues to bite.
Salvation Army Dunedin Community Ministries manager Captain Logan Bathurst said the cost of living crisis was "absolutely making life harder for the people we serve, and it doesn’t look likely to change in the near future".
"We are experiencing the levels of stress increasing in those we’re seeing, and I worry what this budget really means for the most vulnerable that we see," Mr Bathurst said.
"People’s resources, financial, physical and emotional, are being slowly exhausted and it doesn’t take much to push them into crisis.
"Overall, I think the outlook is bleak, we’re already stretched and the signs aren’t looking good."
Presbyterian Support Otago social work team leader Jollene Warrington agreed, saying the charity was seeing an increasing number of people presenting for food and wrap-around support.
"We are finding ourselves responding to a lot of crisis situations, more so than ever before," Mrs Warrington said.
"People are telling us they are struggling with everyday expenses, with rent and electricity being their biggest expense.
"Food is the last straw for them and they are having to turn to food banks for support.
"More and more people are struggling with anxiety, and their mental health is impacted due to the financial pressure of everyday living," she said.
Mrs Warrington described the Budget 2026 Social Development and Employment package — which announced "$45 million for community food support" as "a bit of a mixed bag".
The package would keep school breakfast and lunch programmes going, but otherwise amounted to a funding cut in the long run for food banks, as the funding would run out in 2027.
Mrs Warrington said the housing provisions in the Budget 2026 Social Development and Employment package meant that families facing homelessness would find it much harder to get into government-funded emergency accommodation.
"This could lead to many people ending up in overcrowded cars, couch-surfing or sleeping rough."
For families which are able to secure social, transitional or emergency housing, living expenses will rise significantly from April 1, 2027, when tenants will have to pay 30% of their income towards rent, up from the current 25%.
"On average, this equates to $31 per week, leaving people with less cash for food and utilities.
"Many people are already doing everything they can while managing unstable housing, disability, ill health, caregiving responsibilities, debt or family violence.
"Hardship is not always the result of poor choices, often it is the consequence of systems that leave too many people without enough support to withstand rising costs and increasing insecurity," she said.
The Salvation Army Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit director Bonnie Robinson said the increases in rent were "effectively a tax on people who are already struggling".
"The proposal shifts money from one group of low-income vulnerable people to another. This doesn’t improve levels of poverty and hardship — it just shifts them around," she said.
Modelling showed that about 84,000 social housing households across New Zealand would be worse off under the changes, affecting day-to-day survival for households, she said.
Budget 2026 also included provisions which would make things tougher for people on benefits and those experiencing unemployment.
Mrs Warrington said this could lead to a rapid influx of people whose incomes had been cut or entirely suspended, resulting in staff spending many hours helping distressed clients fight benefit cuts.
"It could also lead to food banks placing tighter restrictions on the limit of food parcels people are able to receive," Mrs Warrington said.
Mosgiel Community Foodbank co-ordinator Emily Croft said the impact of the Budget would spread throughout the community and social agencies, making it harder for people to access support across the board.
"The rhetoric around beneficiaries has been very negative, and making it harder for young people to access benefits will not help at a time when jobs are increasingly difficult to come by," Miss Croft said.
