At this time of year, as the festive season approaches, there are many examples of kindness and generosity around Maitland.
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But that generosity exposes need from an increasing number of people who have fallen on hard times.
Maitland Senior Citizens Association and Maitland Neighbourhood Centre are among the organisations that have recently provided help for people who are doing it tough.
While the good deeds of these people should never go unrecognised or unappreciated, it’s time to consider what is driving the disadvantage that seems to be growing in some pockets of Hunter communities.
Maitland Neighbourhood Centre manager Naomi Rees (pictured) told Fairfax Media that she and her staff expected to give away 220 hampers to people in need this Christmas. But she said about as many people would also be turned away because the centre’s resources could only stretch so far.
“We ask people if they got a hamper last year, and if they did we give it to another family,” Ms Rees told Fairfax Media.
“We don’t know what else to do, we could do 500 easily for people who need them. And I want to make that point – they need them, not want them.”
It should be a wake-up call to us all that the centre handed out only 30 Christmas hampers a decade ago – that's a whopping 633 per cent increase.
The unsettling part of this revelation is not just that so many people need help at Christmas, it’s that they likely also need help during the non-festive periods of the year.
It’s no secret that there is a high rate of domestic violence in the Maitland area, and Fairfax Media has previously reported on social housing queues in this region that stretch for years. Unemployment – particularly youth unemployment – has also been too high in the Hunter for a long time. These factors have an impact on people’s hip pockets.
Community organisations like the neighbourhood centre are renowned institutions in regions that experience these problems.
But they are limited in how they can help – through no fault of the hard working and relentless people who staff such facilities.
It’s not good enough to leave organisations like the community centre to deal with these problems as they spiral out of control.
Clearly we, as a society, need to make sure we are doing everything we can to address the issues that lie at the heart of disadvantage.