Jannine Jackson CEO of Sir David Martin Foundation recently interviewed on 103.2fm said “The increase in phone calls to our office has been dramatic”.
In the past 4 months Sir David Martin staff have been taking at least 6 phone calls per day at their office in the centre of Sydney. This is unusual because we are a Foundation that funds crisis programs, we don’t normally receive direct requests for help. The people that we are speaking to have already phoned numerous churches, charities, rehab centers and crisis centre’s with no hope of receiving any help. “The funds do not match the increased demand for help” they are told. In desperation they are phoning us direct to see if we know of somewhere, anywhere that can help. When we offer them a contact number they inevitably say “we tried them, they are full”.
As a Foundation we raise our funds by campaigns, events, and corporate supporters, tirelessly writing up grant applications and asking everyone we meet to help us. As the requests for help double, so will our funds need to be doubled? Last year our programs received 1,000s of request for help that we could not say “yes” to.
Sir David Martin Foundation funds 3 programs; with Mission Australia’s Triple Care Farm in the Southern Highlands being its major needs focus. Giving a hand up to adolescents’ whose lives and relationships have been lived out on the streets or to young Australians who are finding life just far too hard. Multiple suicide attempts are a common factor. Where loneliness, fear and desperation become the norm and family life has become a war zone.
The majority of increased phone calls are from Mothers ‘pleading’ for help for their children and themselves, this is their last chance, either their child will soon die or end up in jail. The families are at crisis point often with other siblings’ struggling to cope with the increase in aggression and tension within the home. Marriages are breaking down.
We do not have the funds to say “Yes we can help”.
The programs we fund are stretched well beyond capacity as quoted by Paul Andrews below.
Mission Australia spokesman Paul Andrews said its 14-bed Liverpool Centre - one of its four Sydney centre’s stretched well beyond capacity - had been issuing people with swags as a ''last resort''.
''When it comes to the point of us having to offer swag to somebody that's something that we're not happy about because it means we can't address their other issues,'' he said.
Staff at Sir David Martin said “It is not only the number of phone calls that have increased, we have noticed that there is an increase in the desperation & frustration by the caller, a hopelessness at not being able to find the critical help they need!”
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