Another car parks behind and this time a man gets out, opens the boot, and hauls out six or seven shopping bags of food.

This is the daily reality of one of the largest emergency relief providers in the ACT - Canberrans seeking help; Canberrans giving it.

St John's Care, a parish-based community organisation, provides people on the edge with the most basic of needs - whether that means food, clothing or help with paying power and phone bills or prescriptions. It also provides ongoing support, including counselling and advocacy to organisations such as Centrelink and Housing ACT, to help people escape their personal crisis, whether it's homelessness, domestic violence, unemployment, or just the struggle to get through. It's a hand-up, not a hand-out, they say.

Executive director Sarah Murdoch said last summer's bushfires and COVID-19 have brought in people who lost jobs and homes overnight. About 20 people a day are coming through the doors seeking help.

"The majority of those 20 are clients who have never used our service before and they've probably never used emergency relief at all before," she said.

"In normal times, we would get someone like that maybe once a month, once every six weeks.

"For the first little bit it was very quiet because a lot of people probably had savings they could tap into and a lot of people were very hopeful their circumstances would change - and a lot of people, unfortunately, felt a lot of shame in accessing services such as ours."

Fundraising and programs manager Jason Haines speaks of a family of four living in their car in Canberra. Both parents have lost their jobs. The parents drive to different locations each night to sleep; they try to make their children think they are on holiday. There is no emergency accommodation available for them.

Ms Murdoch says it still shocks people to understand the level of need in Canberra.

"We've got some of the most significant levels of poverty and some of the most significant levels of affluence," she said.

Most local charities, including St John's Care, have been affected by the coronavirus. Hands Across Canberra is co-ordinating a public Canberra Recovery Appeal to help keep local charities afloat. St John's Care is the umbrella provider for Raw Potential, an outreach service to young people at risk of violence and homelessness. Raw Potential has taken a hit, with much of its funding coming from events which have been cancelled due to the pandemic.

St John's Care also had to cancel four food drives early in the pandemic. And their donations dropped when their usual donors had already given to bushfire causes - "completely understandable and commendable" - says Ms Murroch - as no one realised a pandemic was around the corner.

Ms Murdoch said St John's Care had seen fewer of its usual clients, especially the long-term unemployed whose JobSeeker payment was doubled to $1500 a fortnight in response to the coronavirus outbreak. She is now worried about what will happen when JobSeeker is wound back and JobKeeper wage subsidies end in September.

"We know in September, we're going to be hit hard," she said.

"If the government doesn't look into a bit of a transition plan to bring the money back slowly or they don't extend it, there will be a tsunami of need.

"At that point it will also be 100 days to Christmas, that time when families are facing their greatest financial strain of the year. They'll then have lost funding that has been supporting them. And winter bills come in September as well."

Ms Murdoch agreed JobKeeper was meant to be a stopgap measure, but said it may also need to be extended. "I can't see come September, every single one of those jobs will be back," she said.

Meanwhile, St John's volunteers continue to give, including Pat White, a retired school principal who has been giving her time to the charity for four years alongside husband Sandy.

"Certainly the clients that we meet, it could have been us in different circumstances," she said.

"They've either been through one crisis or two or three together and none of us would have coped any better if we'd hit that brick wall. I feel fortunate I haven't hit that wall, yet, and the clients are so grateful. I get a lot out of it."

Vicky Cullen, 77, a former high school teacher and Anglican priest, has been volunteering at St John's Care for eight years, coming in on Fridays. That's a busy day in normal times, with a free lunch for clients sometimes meaning 100 people eat in the church hall.

"I am part of this church and this is what I enjoy most," she said.

"It's really good meeting the variety of clients and also the social life we have with each other. We ask each other how we're going, which is good during this time of isolation. I live by myself and I look forward to Fridays."

Sandy White, 71, a retired airport manager, says they also see a lot of people fleeing domestic violence.

"It's not just the very poor. One lady came in [in an expensive car]. She'd just put the kids in the car and driven off," he said.

Katie Glover, 22, started volunteering three months ago as part of her university psychology studies.

"It's just so rewarding," she said. "When people come here and you carry out the food and say 'Oh, I've just got one more bag', they say, 'More?'. They're just so thankful and it's so rewarding to be able to help change their life ... You have no idea people live like that in Canberra until you see it."