As the rising cost of living continues to hit hard, Geraldton-based community legal service Regional Alliance West is being overwhelmed by the number of people seeking assistance.
A Geraldton-based community legal service has been forced to turn clients away as case numbers increase.
Operations manager Chris Gabelish said many of the cases turned away were families, so the actual number of people going without help was higher.It is the only community legal service within the 1,500km stretch from Joondalup to Karratha, and provides advice on civil cases to clients from several regional and remote towns.
Mr Gabelish, who has worked in community relief for 40 years, said those in need of help were increasingly coming from a growing class he described as the "the working poor", who had been hit hard by the rising cost of living."That's a terrible indictment on the cost of living that people are actually suffering through at the moment."Mr Gabelish said the people RAW helped were often intertwined with family and domestic violence issues and many were facing homelessness.
"It's not like Australia is the poorest country in the world, and yet we've got these hundreds of thousands of people that aren't getting the service simply because state and feds are looking at each other and wondering 'okay, how much are we going to slip in'," he said.Community legal centres have made a united call for the Commonwealth to double its current funding for services to at least $270 million per year for the next five years.
Help Turned Away Community Denied Funding New RAW Regional Alliance West Not-For-Profit Commonwealth Homelessness Cost Of Living Wa News Geraldton News Legal Aid WA Attorney General John Quigley Community Legal Centre Australia Legal Advice Tenancy Advice
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