‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

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

Nearly 800 individuals have actually looked for haven in NSW evacuation centres but their status as pop-up homes for some will cease to exist after the impact of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred passes.

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ regional real estate and homelessness manager for northeast NSW, has been on the cutting edge supporting people sleeping rough in flooded zones.

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

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

“It has actually been a horrendous time for the homeless community,” 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 places they might sleep across a northern NSW region currently handling an alarming scarcity of economical housing.

“We’ve been helping out an entire family oversleeping their cars and truck,” Ms Kennedy stated.

“Seeing them in this horrendous weather condition is actually terrible.”

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 absolutely do have a real estate problem in the Northern Rivers and we require services,” Ms Kennedy said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said evacuation centres established in schools, universities, health clubs and clubs could not work as a long-term fix to entrenched housing issues in the region.

“I am fully familiar with the significant obstacles for real estate in the Northern Rivers, but evacuation centres are not permanent solutions … we do not have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allotment,” he stated.

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

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

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

About 10,000 homes and services were still not linked to power as heavy rain continued to fall in numerous 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 among the debris that up after substantial swells damaged the coastline for days.

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the financial assistance would be backed by mental health services for impacted locations.

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

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