Source: Radio New Zealand
A West Auckland foodbank is giving out more than 200 food parcels a month. File picture. RNZ / Simon Rogers
A West Auckland foodbank says demand for its services has reached its highest-ever levels.
Waitakere Community Outreach foodbank coordinator Victor Davies, who has been running food banks for 26 years, told Morning Report the organisation has never been busier than it is now.
“When I first started, people were asking for food parcels, approximately 10 times a week. Now the number has gone up to 50 a week. We’re doing over 200 a month.
“I call them the working poor. You’ve got two people working, and they still can’t make ends meet. And a lot of people out there really are on struggle street,” he said.
Davies said food was the first thing to go when bills needed to be paid.
“It is the exorbitant rent that people pay. And don’t forget, they have to pay the rent, their electricity, everything else on top of that. And so to me, the last thing on the list is food.”
He said one home he delivers food to has two large families living together under one roof, just to pay the bills.
Ministry of Health figures from November 2025 revealed one in five children live in a household where food runs out.
Those numbers were higher in the Pacific community, where 44.3 percent lived in households where food ran out often or sometimes. That figure was 32.3 percent for Māori children.
This compares to 18.3 percent of children who responded to the survey as European or other, and 13.2 percent for Asian children.
Davies said the cost of living was also resulting in people no longer being able to pay their rent.
“People can’t afford rent, they get evicted. They’ve got to look for something else. They’re actually couch surfing, so they move from one accommodation to the other,” Davies said.
“I don’t think, quite honestly, there is an answer to this. I really don’t.
“We’ve created a society now with a very big divide, a big ravine where you’ve got the very wealthy at the top, you’ve got the bottom. We’ve created a poor, working class society, even though you’re working. And some people are working two or three jobs just to make ends meet.
“I don’t know where people would be if we didn’t have food banks. I really don’t,” Davies said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand