The Wairoa Budget Advisory Service in Wairoa was formed in a time of crisis - just after Cyclone Bola washed out the Wairoa Bridge - cutting off half the town.
28 years on, it is still the place where many turn, in their own times of financial crisis.
Manager, Ngaio says the advisors have skills in crisis interventions, complex debt, which she says is a concern in small communities, as well as insolvencies.
They also help with numeracy and literacy.
But - the future of the vital service hangs in the balance.
It's now struggling to keep out of the red itself - after the Ministry of Social Development decided to pull its funding last October.
Budget advisor Stephenie says: "I couldn't believe that after so long, with all the people that have been able to be helped in Wairoa...even the generations that we've been through, that they would just decide that we are going to try this new way, what happened to what's not broke don't fix?"
The Ministry has allocated the funding to a new provider - Birthright Hawke's Bay - which will deliver a new programme - Building Financial Capability.