The Glen Innes St Vincent de Paul conference paid out $34,379 in utility bills over the 2018-19 financial year, 44 per cent of their total aid. It was more than they paid for any other item class, including food.

And electricity bills are number three on their list of "client circumstances" driving residents to charity, behind food and other bills, debt and loss of income.

Vinnies veteran Kerry Muir has been at the Glen Innes service since 1984. He said financial circumstances for poor locals have never been worse in his experience, blaming the Federal government for not increasing the Newstart allowance since 1994.

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"The majority that come to us say we've just run out of money until next week when we get our next payment come in," he said.

Vinnies's conference of charity gave $77,400 to 225 people over the 2018-19 financial year. Most of them, according to Kerry, earned about $580-590 a fortnight, with 97.1 per cent on some form of government support.

After paying the local average rental, close to $300, they're left with about $200 dollars to cover electricity, a phone bill, food and everything else.

Mr Muir said the need for aid locally has increased "tremendously" over the last few years.

"There's more people who are finding it challenging to meet rents.

"The government regards somebody homeless if they have not a permanent roof over their head. I think it's around 13 per cent of the people we see are classified as homeless - sleeping in cars or in caravan parks."

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The "age profile" of Glen Innes residents seeking help is more or less flat, but the age bracket in need of most help is 30-39 year olds. Pensioners over 60 need by far the least, representing just 15.6 per cent of all "clients".

More women than men ask for help - 54.2 per cent versus 45.8 per cent.

Almost all are unemployed. Their most common primary source of income is Newstart (36.8 per cent). Second is the disability support pension (23.8 per cent). Number three is a parenting benefit (17.2 per cent).

And most people come just once a year - 56.9 per cent of last year's clients had never asked for help before, and 60.4 per cent of clients asked for it just once.

Mr Muir said the answer to the growing problem was to simply increase Newstart and give poor people a pay rise (Prime Minister Scott Morrison has vowed not to do this).

In the absence of a rate increase poor people will continue to rely on charity services like Vinnies, the Salvation army and Glen Innes' near-unique locally-run Opportunity shop.

Without the services' 50 volunteers and thousands of dollars worth of donations in their second hand bins, people would simply have to leave town to Armidale or Inverell to get support, Mr Muir said.

"We're trying to give people a handup, in other words become independent - which restores their dignity and management of their own lives," he said.

"But we're here when that fails, when they can't do that."

Glen Innes has an unemployment rate well over double the state average of 4 per cent, with the latest estimates suggesting around 10 per cent of residents looking for work cannot find it. Glen Innes also likely has a low labour force participation rate; fewer people are looking for work.

The disability support pension is worth $843.60 a fortnight at the maximum base rate. Newstart is worth $556 a fortnight, or $40 a day.

When ground was broken on the Glen Innes White Rock wind farm it was the largest in NSW, costing $400 million. The Sapphire energy project cost $550 million.

A pair of University of Sydney academics who are studying the impact of mass renewable investment last month said most of the benefits of those projects have been "privatised" into the hands of a few, telling the Examiner the biggest gripe they had heard was a failure to provide cheaper local power prices.