Near-suicidal cases haunt agency staff

Social workers in Wanganui are dealing with growing numbers of people they believe are bordering on suicidal as the recession bites deeper and harder.
Both the City Mission and Wanganui Budget Advisory Service told the Chronicle they were dealing with people who were at the point of no return.
City Missioner Shirley-Joy Barrow said a lot of these people were simply overwhelmed by debt and bordering on suicidal.
Ms Barrow said the numbers of people coming to her agency desperate for someone to talk to in the last few months have "gone through the roof".
"They're looking for ways to cope with growing stress in their lives," she said yesterday.
She said those turning up for advice were simply getting more desperate.
"And we're not talking down-and-outs here. I've had people coming in here that I never thought I would ever see at the City Mission.
"It's brought out more desperate people who, given other circumstances, would never reach out for help. This has been a huge change.
"A lot of them may be asset-rich and cash-poor, but they're thinking that maybe life insurance would be more beneficial to their family right now than them being around.
"It's terrible when it gets to this point," Ms Barrow said.
Sandy Fage, co-ordinator of Wanganui Budget Advisory Services, said she had three people turn up at her office who were at the point of no return.
"In my 10 years in this job, I've never seen that before. We're simply seeing more people who are stressed and depressed," Ms Fage said.
"I've had three that have been close to suicide. They're people who despair that nobody can help them because their problems are huge," she said.
She said her office was seeing the recession affecting a lot of areas that they had not seen before.
"It's not as easy as saying to these people to cash up their assets. The property market is tough, and we've got four mortgagee sales that we're dealing with at the moment.
"But in two cases those people were already desperately trying to sell their properties, but they can't."
Ms Fage said she and her staff were feeling stressed, and that was purely because of the scale of the problems they were dealing with.
"It's starting to affect other people - younger people too - who can't get work.
"And we're finding three generations of one family living under one roof. That's something that we know is not uncommon in Auckland but we haven't seen here to this extent until now.
"The problems are getting worse, and it's likely to be long-term rather than short-term."
Ms Fage said her office had just finished training four more voluntary advisers.
"But this is something we used to do once every three years. Now we're having to do it every year, and that's because of demand."
She said some of those in dire straits were still battling bank fees.
"A client borrows too much, direct debit isn't maintained, so the account is overdrawn. But when it doesn't have an overdraft facility, the bank fees are charged. Then next week two bills don't get paid. It snowballs.
"I've had a client through here who owed $950 in bank fees that gathered over just three months. Yet that person hadn't come to see us sooner."
Ms Fage said the advisory services message remained the same - don't leave it too late before seeking advice. She said the service was able to talk to creditors and some of them were more understanding.
She said one development had been a growing number of people wanting to withdraw their money from Kiwisaver.
"These are people who don't want to take a contribution `holiday' but those who need money to pay creditors."
Ms Fage said the message remained the same: if you have problems get to the advisory service now, not later.
+The Budget Advisory office is open 9am-2pm Monday to Friday. Phone 345 3746.