Salvation Army Captain Harriet Farquhar set to leave Tamworth, warns new class of needy could fall between cracks of Tamworth welfare system

That's according to Salvation Army Captain Harriet Farquhar, who is set to leave Tamworth.

The city's agencies face a wave of new needy from a new clientele of the newly jobless, she said, but aren't well-established to cater for them.

"The issue with the Tamworth structure is that the services are very disjointed, it's fragmented, if you've never had to navigate the services before, navigating the services in most places are really, really difficult," she said.

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"The government doles out money into boxes. We know the boxes we work in, if you don't know what box you fit in, or there isn't a box, you might have to ring five agencies and each of them are going to say you're not our box."

Captain Farquhar arrived in the city to take up the army's top job 18 months ago, just six weeks before the start of the coronavirus crisis.

Days ago she got "that phone call that all Salvo officers dread saying we're moving you".

Salvation Army officers are unpaid, and can be moved by leadership at a moment's notice. She has been ordered to Sydney to work in the organisation's divisional headquarters.

She said her replacement, who is likely to take over at the start of 2022, will have to grapple with the fallout of the COVID crisis.

The virus has left the city's welfare agencies with an "increased demand", a problem that is only set to grow. Many of them have been taxpayers all their life and are now finding themselves in trouble for the first time.

She gave three examples of gaps in welfare service: help for ex-prisoners; single men; and people who've travelled to Tamworth for a job that has fallen through.

The best solution, as always, is community-based giving at a neighborhood level, she said.

Captain Farquhar leaves for Sydney early next week. A retired Salvation Army major will fill the gap until the next full-time Captain is appointed to serve in Tamworth.

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