Sudbury Community House has delivered more than 20 tonnes of food to families in need in Perth's north over the past 12 months.
Traditionally used to host fitness classes and language lessons, some community centres have been transformed into makeshift crisis hubs for families doing it tough across Western Australia. Sudbury Community House's Tina Lizzi said people started knocking on the door asking for food about 12 months ago.
"It's quite common across the neighbourhood centres that they're a front point now for people experiencing homelessness, food insecurity and domestic violence," he said.Sudbury House is one of 50 organisations that rely on core funding grants from the WA Government's Empowering Communities Program to operate.But funding levels have stayed as they were five years ago, aside from indexation.
Ms Harwood said that did not make sense, given WA's $3.2 billion surplus expected this financial year.