‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable citizens face a battle to find food and someplace dry to sleep when flood waters recede and short-lived shelters shut.

Nearly 800 individuals have sought refuge in NSW evacuation centres however their status as pop-up homes for some will stop to exist after the effect of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred passes.

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ regional housing and homelessness supervisor for northeast NSW, has actually been on the front lines supporting individuals sleeping rough in flooded zones.

Her task was made harder on Monday due to harm to Fred’s Place, the Tweed Heads drop-in centre where she is based, with consistent rains flooding the area.

On any provided day, the centre serves about 130 hot meals to those in need but showers and laundry facilities run out commission till the flood damage is repaired.

“It has actually been a horrendous time for the homeless neighborhood,” Ms Kennedy told AAP.

“It has been truly challenging attempting to get them any kind of shelter.”

She said the were attempting to discover any dry locations they might sleep across a northern NSW area currently handling an alarming lack of economical real estate.

“We’ve been assisting a whole family oversleeping their car,” Ms Kennedy stated.

“Seeing them in this horrendous weather is really dreadful.”

The Byron Shire regional federal government location, south of Tweed Heads, had the most rough sleepers of any council area in the state, according to a 2024 federal government street count.

“We absolutely do have a real estate issue in the Northern Rivers and we require solutions,” Ms Kennedy said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns stated evacuation centres established in schools, universities, gyms and clubs might not act as a long-term repair to established housing issues in the region.

“I am totally knowledgeable about the substantial difficulties for housing in the Northern Rivers, but evacuation centres are not permanent services … we do not have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allocation,” he said.

The centres would close in all locations once local emergency orders were lifted, Mr Minns included.

“So I wish to apologise ahead of time however we need to draw a very clear and understood line.”

More than 10,000 individuals were under emergency situation cautions in NSW on Monday early morning, while 1800 individuals were separated by floodwaters.

About 10,000 homes and companies were still not linked to power as heavy rain continued to fall in many locations.

Major flood warnings were still in place for parts of the Clarence and Richmond rivers, while clean-up operations were under way in other places.

In Pottsville, in between Tweed Heads and Byron Bay, a whale carcass was amongst the particles that cleaned up after big swells battered the coastline for days.

Residents from 17 NSW city government areas who had lost earnings due to the storm would be qualified for federal disaster relief funds for as much as 13 weeks, it was announced on Monday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated the monetary support would be backed by psychological health services for impacted areas.

“We’ve got your back, that’s my message to communities here,” he said from Lismore on Monday.

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