‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable locals face a fight to and somewhere dry to sleep when flood waters recede and momentary shelters shut.

Nearly 800 individuals have sought haven in NSW evacuation centres however their status as pop-up homes for some will disappear after the impact of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred passes.

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ regional real estate and homelessness supervisor 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 continuous rainfall swamping the area.

On any provided day, the centre serves about 130 hot meals to those in requirement but showers and laundry centers are out of commission till the flood damage is repaired.

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

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

She said the homeless were attempting to discover any dry locations they might sleep across a northern NSW area already handling a dire shortage of economical real estate.

“We’ve been assisting an entire household oversleeping their automobile,” Ms Kennedy said.

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

The Byron Shire regional government area, south of Tweed Heads, had the most rough sleepers of any council location 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 stated.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said evacuation centres set up in schools, universities, gyms and clubs could not serve as a long-lasting fix to established housing problems in the region.

“I am fully familiar with the considerable obstacles for housing in the Northern Rivers, however evacuation centres are not long-term solutions … we do not have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allowance,” he stated.

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

“So I wish to apologise in advance but we have to draw a really clear and understood line.”

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

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

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 amongst the debris that cleaned up after big swells damaged the coastline for days.

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated the financial assistance would be backed by psychological health services for affected locations.

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

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