‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable homeowners face a fight to find food and someplace dry to sleep when flood waters recede and momentary shelters shut.

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

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ regional real estate and homelessness supervisor for northeast NSW, has actually been on the cutting edge supporting people 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 space.

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

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

“It has actually been truly tough trying to get them any type of shelter.”

She said the homeless were searching for any dry locations they could sleep throughout a northern NSW area currently dealing with an alarming lack of inexpensive housing.

“We have actually been assisting an entire household oversleeping their car,” Ms Kennedy said.

“Seeing them in this horrendous weather condition is truly horrible.”

The Byron Shire city government area, 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 definitely 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 could not act as a long-lasting repair to established real estate problems in the area.

“I am totally conscious of the significant difficulties for real estate in the Northern Rivers, but evacuation centres are not irreversible services … we do not have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allocation,” he said.

The centres would close in all areas once regional emergency orders were lifted, Mr Minns added.

“So I wish to apologise beforehand however we need to draw an extremely clear and understood line.”

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

About 10,000 homes and services were still not linked to power as heavy rain to fall in numerous locations.

Major flood cautions were still in place for parts of the Clarence and Richmond rivers, while clean-up operations were under way somewhere else.

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

Residents from 17 NSW regional government areas who had actually lost earnings due to the storm would be eligible for federal disaster relief funds for up to 13 weeks, it was revealed on Monday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated the financial assistance 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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