Concerns about poverty in Australia are rising as cost-of-living pressures hit hard, with a majority of people agreeing income support payments are not enough to live on, according to new research by the ACOSS and UNSW Sydney-led Poverty and Inequality Partnership, which includes a large group of social justice organisations.

Parliamentarians, including many members of the crossbench, have joined community sector leaders in calling on the parliament to raise the rate of income support.

Youth crime has been touted as a significant problem across NSW, as well as locally, and has led to several meetings being held in Ballina earlier this year and the introduction of tougher youth bail laws across the state.

People experiencing financial and social disadvantage are struggling to keep their homes cool in summer and becoming seriously unwell from the heat, new ACOSS research has found.

As the housing crisis worsens, almost half of financially disadvantaged households in Richmond-Tweed were unable to pay their utility bills on time in the last 12 months, according to new research from the NSW Council of Social Service.

Those advocating for people suffering from housing stress, homelessness, and poverty housing across the Northern Rivers region, say there is an urgent need for the federal government to invest in social housing.

Global figures are astounding with an estimated 500 million women and girls are living each month in period poverty – it is also estimated that in Australia, that figure is over 1 million. 

Around a fifth of people living in various parts of the Northern Rivers are living in poverty, including up to one in four children.

Is it a coincidence that national Anti-Poverty Week starts on the calendar the week right where Responsible Gambling Awareness Week finished off? Or that the week where we look at homelessness also falls the week after Mental Health week?

While our region accounts for only four per cent of the NSW population, some 20 per cent of the state’s rough sleepers are here in the northern rivers, according to Tony Davies, CEO of Social Futures.