“Rising costs, growing community demand, and eroded core funding are forcing houses across the state to cut hours, staff and programs,” he said.
“Years of underfunding has pushed almost half into deficit, leaving them at risk of closure.” Each week, more than 185,000 people access community support and local services through more than 400 neighbourhood houses across the state.
Mr Paterson said many neighbourhood houses and community centres were grappling with increased community need due to cost-of-living pressures, while having to deal with cost increases themselves.
“Without urgent action, communities risk losing the safe, inclusive spaces thousands of Victorians rely on every week,” he said.
“Our data shows that for every $1 of ongoing neighbourhood house funding received from the State Government, communities benefit to the tune of $21.94.”
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The state peak body is also calling on the State Government to fund 25 currently unfunded neighbourhood houses, and commit to 20 new neighbourhood houses in Victoria’s outer metro and regional growth areas.
Hopetoun and District Neighbourhood House, HDNH, customer service representative Laura Moore said as well as being an agent for VicRoads, Services Australia and Yarriambiack Shire Council, HDNH offered a meeting place for groups such as Red Cross and CWA.
“We host the Men’s Shed, we have a gym that comes under our neighbourhood house, and we have a small library here,” she said.
“We’re the tourism information centre, and we offer technology support, printing, emailing and photocopying – we’re very busy.”
Ms Moore said HDNH also assisted people from Yaapeet, Beulah, Woomelang and beyond, for a range of services, available from 9am to 4.30pm five days a week.
“We feel like we are the central hub of the community. We try and help anyone in any way we can,” she said.
Ms Moore said the community was supportive of HDNH and its government campaign.
“At the moment we’re fighting to keep the doors open, and we’re getting a fairly good response from the community,” she said.
“We have postcards here, and anyone who comes in can fill one out with their details and the reasons why they love their neighbourhood house.
“We will then send the postcards to Carers and Volunteers Minister Ros Spence.
“For this small town, we do cover quite a bit. We’re fortunate to get the services we have, and the town definitely does not want to lose them.”
Mr Paterson said 94 per cent of statewide neighbourhood house visitors’ experiences improved physical wellbeing and 96 per cent reported emotional wellbeing as a result of participating.
“We calculate the overall benefits to the Victoria community at $922-million per year,” he said.
“We are saving the government money, now it’s time to save our sector and keep our doors open.”
Ararat Neighbourhood House, ANH, manager Teli Kaur said the main motive of Ararat’s service was to bring people together and prevent isolation, as well as to provide other essential services.
“We are helping in various ways for our community – we’ve got legal services, justice of the peace, and lots of great networks who support our community in various ways, such as dementia and NDIS,” she said.
“We are doing really well with CAFS Ballarat, they have lots of sessions regarding tenancy, finance, all kind of things. And we work with the local bank, they run how to prevent scams sessions.”
ANH welcomes people of all ages, averaging about 35 visitors each day.
“Whenever we run any community event, we always get beyond that point,” Ms Kaur said.
“The people just keep coming and we don’t have space to sit. People always stand – and it’s beautiful that they collaborate, they co-operate with us, they understand who we are.
“This is a good sign that the community is with us.”
Ms Kaur said ANH focused on mental health groups and wellbeing.
“We work with lots of local mental health organisations,” she said.
“Our main program to prevent isolation and to increase mental health wellbeing is our food hub, which runs every week from Tuesday to Friday.
“We focus on fresh produce for people to take and start cooking and we keep looking for new recipes – to just give them more ideas.”
Ms Kaur said the food hub served about 18 to 20 families each day and worked alongside schools and churches to provide services.
She said ANH received funding from Department of Family Fairness and Housing, but she also applied for grants.
“We are trying to give a lot to community, and we do need more funding,” she said.
“Each year prices are going up and up. Our funding has stayed the same, but we’ve got more and more programs coming each year that we would like to bring to the community.
“People say that what we do, no one can do, there are not any government agencies like us.
“We are a really, really great hub for our community.
“It is a very informal place and very welcoming and connected place for everybody, regardless of where they’re coming from.”
There are 401 neighbourhood houses across Victoria, including at Horsham, Rainbow, Nhill, Stawell, St Arnaud, Hopetoun, Murtoa, Warracknabeal, Kaniva, Halls Gap, Sea Lake, Harrow and Donald.
To show support for the campaign, people can visit a neighbourhood house and fill out a postcard to be submitted to Ms Spence’s office.
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