Demand for food parcels across Auckland peaked at quadruple the usual amount during lock-down, and has remained at double the usual demand.
A new drive-through festive food bank in West Auckland aims to meet need there, which is spiking at Christmas.
The Vision West charity delivered 16,000 food parcels in West Auckland over the four months of lock-down, up from 9000 the year before.
The charity's report is mirrored by food banks in the rest of the region and around the country.
Vision West Community Trust head of service development Brook Turner said the demand had been immense heading into Christmas.
After setting up a call centre for their Christmas Poverty Relief Programme last week, the trust received calls from 2700 interested families.
However, the programme could only place 1400 families due to the supply of food and gifts.
The programme provides gifts, essential foods and goodies for Christmas lunch, with families able to pick up their items at an allocated time.
Turner said the event was costly with $300,000 spent to put on run the programme over seven days.
"It's a bittersweet event, you feel the adulation of being able to do something so meaningful and being able to give dignity and mana to those who Christmas is really hard for.
"But you also sit back for a bit and go why are we having to do something at this kind of scale in Tamaki Makarau, Aotearoa?" Turner said.
He's concerned that poverty is too close for comfort for many people in New Zealand.
Turner said recent Covid-19 lockdowns have affected low-income households the hardest, forcing them to rely on social services
"What we're seeing is these low-income kiwis who are falling into poverty, and yes Covid is exacerbating that, but what we have witnessed in the 2020 March lockdown and subsequent lockdowns is that whenever we see a spike of need come up in a lockdown, when we come out the lockdown there is a much longer tail and there's a much higher baseline of need that remains."
"People don't have a safety net anymore," he said.
Kore Hiakai Zero Hunger Collective comprises City Missions in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, the Salvation Army, the Council of Christian Social Services and Vision West.
Chief executive Tric Malcolm said there has been a massive increase in demand for food parcels, not seen since the GFC.
"Every time we have one of these crises we see food insecurity and the need for food parcelling increase and then when things ease off a bit they never return to where they were."
Malcom said the demand for food parcels has increased all around the country since the start of the August Covid-19 lockdown, with a rising population relying on food parcel services to get by.
Kore Hiakai Zero Hunger Collective data estimates one fifth of the population are struggling to put food on the table for their whānau.
University of Otago research suggests $240 worth of groceries would feed a four-person family over a week.
Malcolm recently spoke to a family who after paying the bills had just $50 to feed a family of seven for a week.
"What you can afford then becomes really low nutritional food so then it doesn't actually give you the brain power to cope with your life, so, the onflow of these consequences are quite devastating for a particular population."
Malcom said the cost of providing nutritious food for families has also been compounded by high demand for supermarket goods during lockdowns and the absence of farmers' markets in many places due to Covid restrictions.
She said the long term key to reducing poverty is lowering the price of housing and raising baseline incomes and benefits.
RNZ
