Forget despair and let's start sharing - Salvation Army

The Salvation Army has called on social agencies to abandon the 'handout or hand-up' mentality and focus on collaborations. Photo / Getty Images

The Salvation Army is calling on New Zealanders to re-examine their values and help those suffering in the recession.

The church's director of social services, Major Campbell Roberts, told the Auckland District Council of Social Services yesterday that no one could take a "business as usual" attitude because the signs were that the recession might last several years.

"We are facing a once-in-a-generation challenge. We have to accept the extent of this challenge," he said.

"Poverty was already embedded in our society, and this crisis presents us with an opportunity to address inequality in a more fundamental way than the tried and failed instruments of the past.

"There is a need for re-examination of our values. Realising that there is enough for everyone seems to be the critical recognition that we have got to come to."

He said people should stop focusing on "despairing" talk about bailouts and debts, and start talking about "what we already have and what we could redistribute or share".

"There is enough, but how do we spread it around is a fundamental question we have to grasp," he said.

He called on social agencies to shift from a "handout or hand-up" mentality to working together to help communities develop their own abilities to care for their people.

"We need to help Kiwis to be caring where they live - to show that we can share our dinner tables with others," he said.

"Community organisations are going to have to collaborate with other community organisations.

"We have to find new ways of sharing that could limit a growing sense of competitiveness between organisations.

"We need to be careful that fiscal responsibility doesn't mean we entrench our organisations into being cost-cutting dispensaries of professional care. We have to find ... a new emphasis on community development."

He said agencies needed to change from "doing stuff for the people" to "doing stuff of the people - helping communities to feel that they can contribute to something good, working together on some of this and expecting a more reciprocal way of operating".

Major Roberts also urged the Government to help by building more state houses as a way of keeping people in work and overcoming a housing shortage.

But he said there were signs that the public was ready to help too. Donations to the Salvation Army's annual appeal were up 12 per cent this year.

He said the church decided 18 months ago to stop taking money from pokie trusts for its addiction services, apart from money gathered through a gambling levy by the Ministry of Health. This year's increase in public donations had made up for that loss.

"The public hasn't let us suffer for making that decision."