The front door of the safety net is often a phone call
Continuing our focus on Anti-Poverty Week, today’s post presents a view from the front door of a local service working with people seeking support. Casey North Community Information & Support Service (Casey North CISS) is a not-for-profit community information and emergency relief service in Narre Warren, in the City of Casey in Victoria. VCOSS's 2023 poverty mapping put Casey at the top of Victorian councils by the number of people living in poverty. The post argues that local information and referral is part of the safety net, not an add-on, and that what local services already record can sit alongside national poverty measures.
Anti-Poverty Week 2026 (11–17 October) put a clear national ask on the table. Its Call to Action asks the Australian Government to "establish standard measures of poverty and targets to reduce it". Measures matter. So does the place where many people first say out loud that they cannot make ends meet: the local community information and emergency relief service. We run one of those front doors, in Narre Warren in Melbourne's south-east.
What poverty looks like in Casey
Anti-Poverty Week, drawing on ACOSS and UNSW research, estimates poverty in Australia at "1 in 7 (3.7 million) people and 1 in 6 (757,000) children". In Victoria, VCOSS's 2023 poverty mapping put the City of Casey at the top of the state's councils by the number of people living in poverty: 56,548.
Behind that figure are households across Narre Warren, Doveton, Hallam, Berwick and the surrounding suburbs. Many of them cannot wait for a new measure to be agreed before they need help.
Emergency relief is a gateway, not an endpoint
The Department of Social Services describes emergency relief as one-off help, such as food, transport or chemist vouchers, along with referrals to other services. A review of Commonwealth-funded emergency and food relief went further, describing emergency relief services as "a gateway for providers to connect clients with referral services for more targeted supports".
That gateway role is easy to overlook. Funding conversations often focus on what is handed over: a food parcel, a voucher, a travel pass. The other half of the work is information and referral: knowing which local, state or national service fits a person's situation, and helping them reach it.
What we see at our front door
Casey North Community Information & Support Service (Casey North CISS) is a not-for-profit, and we describe ourselves as "a one-stop-shop for information and support". As our emergency relief page explains, we can sometimes help with food, petrol, chemist prescriptions, baby goods, travel passes and other emergency support. Restrictions apply: people need to live in our local catchment and show current identification, and the first step is a phone call. We can use telephone interpreters if required, and all of our services are free of charge.
Information sits at the centre of that work. We keep a database of almost 6,000 entries covering local, state and national services. If we don't have the information someone needs, we do our best to link them to the right place to get it. In 2024–25 our community information program handled 33,826 enquiries, and we distributed 6,000 copies of our Making Ends Meet guide.
That guide, now in its 26th edition, was started because many people seeking help did not know about services and resources that could make life easier.
Our annual report names the pressure plainly: limited service capacity despite rising demand. Community information is our core business, but emergency relief is our most demanded program.
Three things the next poverty measures could learn from the front door
Count information and referral as part of the relief system. A referral that connects a household to the right support can matter as much as the voucher handed over at the same visit. Funding and reporting frameworks should recognise both.
Use local records as a place-based signal. Services like ours already count enquiries, as our annual report shows. Read alongside national poverty measures, local records like these can show where pressure is building, suburb by suburb, before it shows up in national data.
Keep the first step simple. A phone call, an interpreter if needed, and no charge. Every extra step between a person and that first conversation can be the point where someone gives up.
After the week ends
Anti-Poverty Week is a moment to ask for better measures and targets. The work at the front door continues the following Monday. Supporting the services that take that first call, and the information systems behind them, is one practical way to make sure national measures turn into help that people can actually reach.
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About Casey North CISS: Casey North Community Information & Support Service is a not-for-profit community information and support service at 52-54 Webb Street, Narre Warren, Victoria.
Content moderator: Sue Olney