2025 was another tough year for people in Lismore and the Northern Rivers. This one was tough on the financial side.

Retailers struggled in the first six months, then a few interest rate cuts paved the way for an improved back half of the year. Not great, but improved.

Households continued to struggle with the cost-of-living, led by the housing crisis. Homeowners felt some relief; however, renters suffered further financial stress as the lack of rentable housing stock meant increases in rental prices.

One of the best ways to gauge how difficult this year has been on people is to talk to those charities that provide services to the most vulnerable in our community. The Lismore App sat down with Captain Philip Sutcliffe of the Northern Rivers Salvos to understand the full impact of events in 2025.

"People have just kind of reached the end of what they can actually do. So, over the last 18 months, for us, we've just seen so many brand new faces come in through our doors.

"People who have never had to access any form of assistance from a charity or a community organisation, who have simply come in asking, I've never been here before. What do I do and how? What do you actually offer?"

The type of people who are either walking in or calling the emergency assistance line has broadened this year.

"The heartbreaking stories that we're hearing from people, and more so the people in our community, where both partners are working full time and they are trying to pay off all their bills, and they're trying to make sure that their kids have got something, but by the time they've paid off their bills and they've done X, Y and Z, they've got absolutely nothing left for food at the end of the week.

"And so they're coming and seeing us and finding a bit of relief and a bit of assistance here. But it is heartbreaking in our community that you know we are hearing these stories where people are working full-time jobs and still can't actually afford to put food on the table at the end of the week."

As you can imagine, walking through the doors at Goonellabah for the first time or speaking to someone on the phone for the first time can be daunting and embarrassing.

"For us and our space here, we want to make sure that it's extremely welcoming, so lots of friendly volunteers are here at the door. We do free barista coffee, and there's lots of activity happening in our building, so when people step in through the doors, it feels like a safe space, and it feels like somewhere that they can just sort of relax a bit.

"There's no judgment here from any of our volunteers, and they make them feel extremely welcome, and they'll help guide them through our food pantry and other things like that.

"Their situation isn't just another story, but there's actual, genuine care and compassion. It's amazing how people will break down, and they'll start to share about what's going on in their life. There's always a lot of tears that are shed here, but we always want to make sure that people leave with some form of assistance."

Captain Phil said there are a number of assistance options, including financial and food assistance.

"There's our emergency financial assistance, and that can happen through our phone assessment line or via our face-to-face assessor that we have here on site. So, depending on what's going on in your life and the emergency you might be facing, there's varying amounts of financial assistance that can be offered, and it's not just for food.

"Our universal eftpos cards can be used pretty much anywhere, so it makes it a lot more manageable for people. And you know, we do help out people, or buy those cards with medical expenses or medications or travel assistance to get to medical appointments. They're some of the really big ones that we find a lot of help with.

"Then through our low-cost Food Pantry, we provide reduced price groceries, and then if people come in and they can't actually afford anything, we will actually give them a voucher that they can go and shop in there at no cost as well.

"We do a lot of food rescue, particularly through Woolworths here in Goonellabah. Every week we've always got free bread and lots of fresh produce. So we've got a whole bunch of local farmers that have surplus stock, and so every week's different, and it's always different between Tuesday and Thursday here, but there's lots of different things.

"Throughout the year as well, we use a lot of that produce that comes in, and frozen products that come from Woolworths, and we actually cook that up into frozen meals that we can give away to people. We generally distribute about 350 frozen meals every month."

As well as the financial and food assistance, going through the Salvo doors offers important social benefits.

"We've got cafe tables in our foyer. We do the free tea and coffee, and people just want to come and sit and chat. It's amazing. In a world of social media and all this technology, most people are actually lonely and isolated. We're connected digitally, but we're not actually connected physically, and so this has become a huge connection point for our community."

A significant change in 2025 has been the impact on the 55 and over age bracket, who have lost work and are looking to bridge the gap until they reach pension age.

"The skill set they have may be very limited, and they're like, Oh, we feel that we're too old to retrain, so they're just in limbo land, before they can actually reach and get the pension and all that kind of stuff.

"Then also those families in that 30 to 40 age bracket, where they're doing what they can. They're working full time, they're doing all these other things, but just the overall compounding pressure of everything going up."

To understand the impact the Salvation Army Northern Rivers branch has on our community, you only have to look at how they helped families over Christmas.

"This year, the Salvation Army actually partnered with St Vincent de Paul, and we worked together to provide food and toy hampers for our community. Across the Northern Rivers, there was about 500 families that got assistance via food hampers or via toy hampers. It was a great partnership with the team at St Vincent de Paul across Casino, Lismore and Ballina.

(The Salvos Christmas Toy gifts 2023)

"We had over 550 children that we provided toy gifts for this year as well, and for us at the Salvos, where our main focus is the toys, that was an extra 125 kids than what we did in 2024 so a huge step up, and we couldn't do what we do without the amazing support of our community, the businesses that came on board, that came upas part of the Wishing Tree, those that gave financial donations, all our local service clubs that support us each and every year. It was a huge effort from across the community."

That community effort will more than likely be needed in 2026, as the housing crisis continues. The 50 Build to Rent apartments in East Lismore, 20% affordable, should be complete at the end of the year, and the 400-home site next door should start being developed early in the new year.

If you or someone you know needs help, The Salvos Northern Rivers Corps Food Pantry is open Tuesday's and Thursday's between 930 and 1130 and the phone assessment line is available 9am to 4pm, five days a week on (02) 8775 7988.

You will find The Salvos at 30 Cambridge Street, Goonellabah.