Subsidised Café Meals Program: more than just "a cheap meal"

Abstract

This paper describes the Café Meals Program that is operating in the City of Yarra. The Program has resulted from a collaboration of North Yarra Community Health (NYCH) and City of Yarra, and aims to improve access to nutritious, affordable and socially acceptable meals for homeless people. The Program forms a part of City of Yarra?s Meals Program; it is managed by NYCH. The Café Meals Program is currently feeding 50-60 homeless people in Yarra. It targets those who are homeless (or at risk of becoming homeless), who find it difficult to prepare their own meals, and who have no other prepared meal options that are appropriate for them in the community. It provides a choice of four local cafés and restaurants for its participants. Each person is provided with a membership card that can be used once per day to purchase a meal (to the value of $8.80) for the price of $2.00. The program empowers clients by giving them control over when, where and what they will eat. It also enables the homeless person to participate in the life of the community by dining in venues where the general community eats and socialises. This improved sense of social connectedness and inclusion can have significant effects on the self-esteem of the program participants, and, subsequently, on their ability to make choices that improve their health and wellbeing. This paper presents this innovative program in detail and provides some insight into its outcomes, the components of the program that make it work, as well as the challenges that the program has had to address.