KEY POINTS:
Demand for food parcels is finally dropping slightly as low-income families gain from the Government's Working for Families package.
The Auckland City Mission, the Salvation Army in Manukau and Papakura's Mercy Mission all report handing out fewer food parcels to hungry families last year, and say a further decline is likely this year.
For all three agencies, the declines follow a decade of increasing demand, despite falling unemployment.
Although more people are in paid work, agencies have reported worsening problems of indebtedness driving families to ask for food handouts.
The main factor in the slight improvement appears to be Working for Families.
Since March 2005, higher family assistance has raised the net income of a sole parent with three children under 13 by $84 a week if the parent is solely on a benefit, and also by $84 a week if the parent works for 20 hours a week at $12 an hour.
Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson said the number of food parcels provided by the mission jumped more than three-fold from 1596 in 1996 to 5128 in 2005, before dropping to 4910 last year.
Last month, 246 parcels were handed out, down from the average of 409 a month last year.
But Ms Robertson said it was too soon to say whether the improvement would be sustained.
"In the past, when the country was doing well economically, food parcel numbers were very low,"she said.
That had changed and families were still seeking food parcels at much higher rates than 10 years ago, when the economy was much weaker.
"In the past six to eight years there has been a real alienation," she said.
"Some of it is about disparity rates and some of it is about debt. People who have been living in poverty are more entrenched in it and that is partly because debt is an underlying thing underneath there."
Manukau Salvation Army community ministries manager Pam Hughes said her agency's food parcel total grew from 3851 in 2002 to a peak of 4073 in 2005, dropping to 3858 last year.
The Manukau facility has had a Work and Income official on site since March 2003 to make sure people get benefits, family assistance, accommodation supplements and other help to which they were entitled.
Gaylene Bourne, of Mercy Missions, said her group tightened its policy 15 months ago and its food parcel numbers had dropped from 500 a week in the early 1990s to 50 or 60 a week now.
"We feel Working for Families has helped a lot. There are still those struggling, but Working for Families has made a huge difference," she said.
"One of our criteria is that families must be looking to move forward. There are still a lot of families looking for handouts, not a hand-up."
A couple who used Mercy Mission's foodbank, Matt Standing and Jenna Clark, both 21, said they had no reserves to draw on when Mr Standing lost his job in a Whangarei quarry and they had to return to Auckland, owing $47,000 on credit cards, car finance and other debts.
"For a few weeks we couldn't afford to eat," Mr Standing said. "They [Mercy Mission] were right there."
The mission referred the couple to the Papakura Budget Service and they have almost paid off their debts.
