A group that started out on Facebook as a means for Sydney's Aboriginal community to keep in touch during COVID lockdowns and isolation is now helping people make ends meet as the cost of living spirals.
"We were able to gauge that there was a huge need in the community, especially for food relief," First Nations Response co-founder Coral Lever said.
Since the pandemic began at the beginning of 2020, First Nations Response has supplied food to 8,000 Aboriginal families and elders in the inner city and inner west.
"We kind of thought that post-COVID it would settle down and we could get back to our regular jobs, but I think that that was a huge underestimation," Ms Lever said.
"Now I think that we're seeing an economic crisis, the need for our service has gotten a lot more."
The food relief organisation, which has two pop-ups a week in Marrickville and Redfern, is run by three Aboriginal women.
"We've created a culturally appropriate and safe space for people to be able to access food without there being a shame element, which has been huge in our community," Ms Lever said.
"People pop in more for a yarn and a conversation and the food is secondary to what we do."
First Nations Response is just one pandemic-era charity service that has become a permanent part of the emergency relief sector despite COVID restrictions long since easing.
Community organisations 'filling the breach'
Joanna Quilty, CEO of the New South Wales Council of Social Service (NCOSS), told ABC Radio Sydney the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, floods and cost of living pressures had combined to put enormous pressure on the charity sector.
"It's really basic needs that people aren't able to meet and it's where our local grassroots organisations and local place-based community organisations are really stepping in and filling that breach," Ms Quilty told Breakfast presenter James Valentine.
She says many local community groups that step up in a crisis do not have government funding despite the government relying on them and even referring people to them for help.
State and federal governments ramped up funding for emergency food relief during the height of COVID restrictions.
The NSW government increased funding for Foodbank and OzHarvest during the pandemic to provide hampers, cooked meals, fresh produce and other food relief products to community organisations like First Nations Response, local councils and schools.
But Ms Quilty said the funding was inadequate for long-term needs.
"There is no funding model that matches population growth, matches demand in the community. So these organisations are really up against it," she said.
Fed up with photo ops
Amar Singh, founder of Turbans 4 Australia, urged the NSW government to follow Victoria's moves to support charities to provide basic necessities.
"I think we're just waiting on a disaster to happen," Mr Singh told ABC Radio Sydney.
"Then [politicians] come scrambling for photo opportunities and I'm getting quite fed up with that."
He said the queues at their distribution centre in Clyde in western Sydney on Sundays were getting longer.
"Now we've got food insecurity happening and we're still doing 400-500 hampers a week," Mr Singh said.
"People are still lining up at like 9-10am. It's scary to see how many people are struggling."
Gaps in government services have been exposed by natural disasters such as the Black Summer bushfires in late 2019 and floods earlier this year.
Hawkesbury Helping Hands is one community service that has stepped into the breach.
"It's been nonstop for us. We haven't shut our doors one day in the last 18 months," co-founder Linda Strickland said.
The group has not received any funding, despite hosting politicians including prime ministers and the premier.
"They absolutely come to you and tell us what a great job we're doing and that's about it," Ms Strickland said.
As a potential new La Niña weather event threatens to bring more flooding to the area, Ms Strickland wants to know where the funding for the recovery effort will come from.
"We're called on during the bushfires and the floods to set up the evacuation centres. Somebody surely has got to be funded for that after so many natural disasters here in the Hawkesbury," he said.
"Then also, who's funded to get the food and get it out?"
'Ongoing sense of disaster mode'
NCOSS acknowledges that there are grants and funding available but described it as a "patchwork" that is difficult to navigate.
"How do we have a more coordinated, better planned system that joins up all these different organisations," Ms Quilty asked.
With one crisis followed by another, Ms Quilty said there was an "ongoing sense of disaster mode".
Charities see no end in sight to the high level of demand.
Latoya Pinner, who recently joined First Nations Response to assist with the growing workload, said people who made a decent living were accessing the service because of rising rent and bills.
"I guess the pandemic kind of opened Pandora's box. And now we can't close it because the need is just everywhere."
Ms Lever says they are working out a sustainable model to ensure First Nations Response continues.
"We grew up with grandparents fighting for land rights, and rights and these things, so that was great for us," she said.
"And now we've been able to have our kids along, to build something from the ground up with us and be able to create the service that's helping the community.
"It doesn't pay us but it's very rewarding."
