Mandurah’s Halo Team were left shaken after a regular volunteer’s Holden Astra was stolen overnight on Tuesday.
Police told car owner Karen, who asked that her surname be withheld, that after being stolen the car had been involved in a ram raid and a high-speed pursuit.
The car was placed in police impound in Bunbury after the offenders’ arrest.
“So my car’s been having some adventures,” Karen said.
Despite her good spirits, the car’s absence, which services about 20 of Halo’s shelter residents for their appointments and errands, has caused a major disruption to the organisation’s services, which include a shelter, op-shop, outreach, and supplying food to those in poverty.
“I pick up [shelter] residents in it, and drop them off, I take them to appointments, I come here… I transport them all in that car. Like I said I take everything down for the Sunday feed in it, I do everything in that car,” Karen said.
Along with supplies and equipment including two microwaves for the group’s weekly Sunday ‘Feed the Need’ sessions, a shelter resident’s wheelchair was inside the car.
The microwaves have been replaced thanks to donations, but the missing wheelchair may be harder to solve.
“Now his wheelchair’s gone, and he’s walking around town on crutches,” Halo team leader Di Freitag said.
“It’s a rental… I’ll have to find another one,” the resident, who wished to remain unnamed, said.
In the meantime he will rely on crutches, which he said is not good because his leg is supposed to be elevated in a chair at all times.
“It’s got a special leg-raised bit on it for me….They’re insanely hard to find,” he said.
Karen had a small amount of insurance on the car but Ms Freitag is concerned it may not be enough to cover the cost of a new car, which Ms Freitag and Karen suspect they will need, as the car seems to have been badly damaged.
However, the team are trying to keep their chin up and get on with their services.
“If they’re going to steal it and do terrible things like, that I’m just glad no-one got hurt,” Karen said.
“It doesn’t impact on me, it impacts on the people that we help… These are the things people don’t realise, the impact they’re having, how many people they’re impacting.”