Families borrow their way into grief

The Salvation Army says it is struggling to cope with "a tidal wave of need" in Rotorua as more families fall into the hands of moneylenders.

The army's community and family services agency recently went doorknocking in the area that inspired Alan Duff's Once Were Warriors, the Ford Block, offering free donated clothing to needy families.

Manager Rob Gardiner said the agency "just drove into the streets and invited people to try clothing on". The response was so great that it will repeat the exercise.

"We were overwhelmed," he said. "The people raced down to see us and clothing was going all over the place."

Demand for food parcels has also started rising again after declining in April when family support payments were increased, and the agency is finding families doubling up in houses or living in garages and caravans to reduce rents.

"The call upon our services here has been like a tidal wave of need," Mr Gardiner said.

"We offer some new services. It's like we have opened the floodgates because there is just so much need out there - needy people who obviously were not having their needs met."

Paradoxically, this "wave of need" has arrived as the country basks in the lowest unemployment rate in a generation. Nationally, the proportion of working-age adults on benefits has dropped in the past four years from 12.7 per cent to 10.4 per cent.

In Rotorua, beneficiaries are down from 15.6 per cent to 12 per cent - half of them on the domestic purposes benefit.

But beneficiaries and low-income workers have been caught up in a borrowing mania that has doubled personal debt in the past six years.

"We see clients who buy cars and run up big debts and have to borrow money to pay them. It becomes a cycle," Mr Gardiner said.

"These easy finance people have not made our life easy. In one case, a client had half a dozen loan companies in their budget."

The Salvation Army offers free budgeting courses and started a course last week for parents to teach their children the importance of saving.

"They are not taught budgeting at school. It's not modelled to them by their family. They don't have saving skills. They are the 'now generation' - 'I want that now'," Mr Gardiner said.

"I'm not expecting the schools to do it. Financial responsibility is up to the family, not the Government."

* Salvation Army, (07) 346-8113.