State budget food relief funding to 'go a long way' as demand soars

It means places like the Eaglehawk and Kangaroo Flat Community Houses can keep their doors open to the most vulnerable, as demand for food assistance continues to rise.

Manager of both those houses Tracey Moss pleaded for funding earlier this month after reaching a "desperate stage" from the COVID-19 pandemic into a cost of living crisis.

"We went from connecting with 80 to 100 a week to making and home delivering 500 to 600 meals a week," she said.

"Those figures haven't reduced at all and they certainly haven't ease because now we've got the cost of living crisis."

Ms Moss said the funding would "go such a long way" to helping the community houses keep their programs running.

"Neighborhood and community houses are just so vital, ensuring that people just don't fall in between the cracks," she said.

"[The funding] will allow us to continue to hold our community lunches without the pressures that we've seen in the past.

"We'll be able to keep our meal program going, which we offer to very vulnerable people... and we home deliver those home cooked healthy meals to people once a week."

The funding would come in the form of a grant program, with how much available to each house yet to be determined.

Smaller community houses, such as the Long Gully Neighbourhood Centre, were waiting to see what the funding meant for them.

Co-ordinator Kerry Parry said while the centre didn't offer a food program at the same scale as Kangaroo Flat and Eaglehawk, she had seen an increase in people accessing the "mini food pantry".

There were 300 people coming through the doors seeking food, Ms Parry said.

"We are reliant on donations from the public," she said.

"The non-perishable food items, we actually somehow have to fund purchasing those.

"Some of it comes from [Bendigo] Foodshare, but that comes at a cost as well... you pay so much per kilo."

Ms Perry said more expensive food items such as meat were becoming harder to source from food banks like Foodshare.

"At least with a little bit of funding, that should help us to then be able to supplement what we haven't been able to pick up," she said.

The $3.5 million would also be shared among the six regional food relief hubs, which include Bendigo Foodshare and organisations in Shepparton, Geelong, Wodonga, Mildura and Warrnambool.

Cathie Steele, chair of the the Regional Food Security Alliance which connects all six hubs, said the funding recognised the need for equity for regional Victorians to get access to food relief, compared to metropolitan areas.

She said the funding came in a "difficult budget year", which meant the state government recognised the needs of food security for rural Victorians.

Like Ms Parry, Ms Steele couldn't say for certain how the funding would be split.

She said she understood there would be $1.5 million for the six hubs, $1 million for "larger statewide services" and $1 million for the smaller service providers, like neighbourhood houses, who were in "dire need of support".

"It's only 12 months, it's fantastic recognition though," she said.