September 03, 2020
Energy money vital for struggling whānau
Anti-poverty campaigners are calling for the winter energy payment to be extended.
With promised benefit reforms delayed, it’s seen as a ways to get much needed cash into the hands of those on the lowest incomes.
Leonie Morris from the Auckland Women’s Centre says she has heard solo mothers talk of their fear of what will happen once the payments stop on October 1.
She says almost 151,000 New Zealand children live in poverty and almost one in four Māori children are in homes with material hardship.
"It means living in considerable toxic stress because you are always worried about how you are going to pay the next bill, if the fridge or the cars going to break down and how are you going to get that fixed. So it is a real ongoing entrenched problem," Ms Morris says.
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