It’s time to sound the alarm – an increasing number of Victorians face poverty and entrenched disadvantage. As Victorians, we all broadly agree on the basics we require for a dignified life – housing, healthcare, food, education, decent work, social connection and belonging.

For too many people, these foundations are out of reach. Too many Victorians are making impossible choices between food and rent, healthcare and school supplies for their kids. Too many are deciding whether to stay in an unsafe home or struggle on without the care they need.

These are choices that no Victorian should have to make.

Governments have choices too. They have the choice to make the essentials of life affordable, accessible, and available to every Victorian.

We're calling on all parties and candidates to:

1. Prioritise policy that puts an end to poverty in Victoria and ensures that everyone has access to the essentials for a life lived with dignity, hope and opportunity.
2. Commit to paying what it takes and fund Victoria’s community services at a level that reflects their true cost and value, through stable, long-term investment that lets the sector plan, build capacity, invest and deliver sustained impact. This includes standard five-year funding cycles, with a fair mechanism for proven fixed-term programs to transition to ongoing service funding.

We call for this critical policy to be part of every party's campaign commitments in the lead up to the Victorian State Election this November.

Sign the petition now.

Why these two policy asks are critical for Victorians doing it tough and the sector working to support them:

• Right now, Victoria’s social and community services sector is struggling to meet escalating and increasingly complex demand. The sector is being asked to do more with less – to deliver sustained outcomes on funding that does not cover their actual cost.
• The services that provide the essentials to Victorians must be resourced to genuinely prevent disadvantage, rather than only respond to crises. Currently, every single day, frontline community sector workers are faced with relentless choices on how much they can expand their own capacity and put themselves on the line to meet the demands of those in critical need of assistance and support.
• Investing more in early intervention and prevention avoids entrenched disadvantage and spiraling crisis-end costs.
• Treating the community sector as a genuine partner in delivering public benefit is not only a workforce requirement – it is a condition on which the essentials depend.
• And ultimately, because in one of the world's most prosperous places, essentials for everyone shouldn’t be an aspiration – it's a policy choice, and it's time for our leaders to choose it.