An Auckland youth worker says proposed cuts to Auckland’s budget will put programmes designed to keep disadvantaged rangatahi off the streets at risk.
The council is proposing a $36 million cut to arts in their next budget, which aims to fill a $259 million dollar hole.
The budget cuts mean a number of community-minded organisations will lose funding, and with submissions on the budget closing today, some are beginning to worry.
Speaking with Breakfast this morning, Ranui 135’s Rob Luisi said the activities his service offers to youth are at risk of shutting down.
“It puts the number of activities, events and activations that are available rangatahi in our community at risk.”
“Beyond that, there's a lot of anxiety within communities across the board around the possibility of things being lost, whether that's after-school activations, holiday activations - there’s a whole raft of things.”
He said services like his are vital for the community, as they have generational impacts on all youth who come through.
“The impacts are generational.
“We meet kids at primary school and have an active engagement with them all the way until early adulthood, early 20s.
“What happens when you remove people who are the relationship, who hold space for the community to come together, is you leave young people having to whakamana themselves.
“Having to find ways to figure out their own paths.”
He said these “paths” typically tend to be things like crime, which he saw spike during Covid, when services were closed.
Luisi told Breakfast the social benefit of services like his far outweigh the cost of keeping them open.
“Someone who gets some kind of intervention at 13-15 years of age, you might not see the benefit of that until they're in early adulthood.”
Alongside youth services, another big Auckland institution that will lose funding is the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), which helps residents with disputes and their rights.
With cuts to funding, the CAB only has enough money to stay open for six months, says Kate Anderson.
She told Breakfast the organisation wouldn’t be able to adapt to an online service either, as offering face-to-face service essential to supporting those who are digitally excluded.
“That's the core of our service is that it’s face to face, it's for people who don't even know exactly what their problem is, they come in and sit down with volunteers, and we help them unpack it.”
She believes the CAB is being targeted, to an extent.
“They looked to find anything they could cut by 30 June; it was as simple as that; if it could be cut this year, that's what they chose.”
Having been funded for 52 years and 15 months into a three-year deal with the council, Anderson said she was “shocked” when she found out about the cuts.
“It's about people being able to participate in society and not left alone in their communities.”
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