The Salvation Army will close the doors of the Canberra community welfare centre in Dickson and direct those in need to an already over-capacity telephone help line.
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As of July 1, the welfare centre at Hawdon Place will be closed down.
The new delivery model for emergency relief, known as the Doorways program, will be taken up in the ACT.
The first point of call for emergency relief via the new model will be a telephone line based in Sydney.
Salvation Army ACT spokesman Major Gary Masters admitted the telephone service was already struggling to meet the demand of calls from NSW and Queensland residents in need since it began operation on April 1.
"We are working to make sure we have the resources there," he said.
"We were surprised by the number of calls we received in the early stages. We've had to employ more counsellors and work on the telephone system."
From April 1, the case management component of the new model commenced in Canberra with distribution of assistance provided from the welfare centre in Dickson.
The full service model will result in the distribution of assistance to five suburban centres in Gungahlin, Belconnen, Braddon, Woden and Tuggeranong.
The case management component is designed to help stamp out the abuse of the service which has occurred anecdotally in the past.
"Through the new model we now have, we're now able to look at their case history," Mr Masters said.
"Whereas what could have happened in the past, people would go to one Salvation Army office and then go to another Salvation Army office and perhaps another to seek assistance.
"Now we have one centralised system where we're able to see all their needs at the same time."
Mr Masters said the government funding the service received was dependent on the new program.
"The government obviously wants to make sure money they're giving out to various organisations is being spent appropriately," he said.
This year they introduced a tendering process for that money… we presented the Doorways model to the government as our method of delivering welfare and emergency assistance to those in need.
"It's going to put us in a position to be competitive in securing government funding in the future."
