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The Auckland City Missioner says families are having to choose between paying the rent or eating, and that’s forcing them into overcrowded accommodation.
Dame Diane Robertson says not only are more people living in poverty but poverty seems to be more deeply entrenched.
She says in the past week more than 1500 people have come into the Auckland City Mission food bank, a third of them for the first time.
The cost of housing is a big factor in rising distress.
"Families are joining together to rent a house or even a two bedroom flat for five or six adults and four or five children because they can't afford to pay the rent and eat so it's becoming a choice of living in overcrowded conditions and of course that makes health problems for children and all sorts of things, so I think we have a crisis on our hands," Dame Diane says.
The City Mission is running low on funds and needs donations to get through Christmas.
http://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/
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