A South Australian charity says more people are turning up from the early hours of the morning for food and essential support, with some arriving at 1am just to be first in line. Cos We Care, which runs a weekly outreach at Fremont Park in Elizabeth, says the crowd has grown sharply as pressure builds on people facing homelessness and financial hardship in Adelaide’s north.

Ann Cooper said the scale of the problem is visible every week. The volunteer-run service hands out free food, clothing and other essentials, and she said it is now seeing new faces alongside people who have relied on it for years. At times, families and individuals wait through the night for a place at the front of the queue, even though there is still support available when the doors open.

The surge comes as food insecurity stretches well beyond one suburb. Foodbank Australia’s 2025 Hunger Report said one in three Australian households, or 3.5 million, experienced food insecurity over the past year, while cost-of-living pressures were the top concern for 87 per cent of Australians. More than a third of households said it was difficult or very difficult to make ends meet, and 61 per cent of food-insecure households were classed as severely affected.

In northern Adelaide alone, more than 50,000 households are experiencing food insecurity, with about 147 providers trying to meet demand from struggling families and individuals. Cos We Care is part of that network, and Cooper said the charity sees the need up close when people turn up with nothing and need basic items to get through the day. In one case, she said a 17-year-old girl came into someone’s care with nothing, and the charity helped provide a bag of toiletries, a blanket and headphones.

That is the pressure point for volunteer-run food relief: demand is rising faster than the system is designed to absorb it. Cooper said people still come back after months away when they hit a hard patch, while others depend on the service every week, a pattern that suggests the cost of living crisis is not easing for those already on the edge. For now, the weekly outreach continues as it is, but the line forming at 1am is a sign of how long the queue for help has become.