‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable citizens face a fight to discover food and someplace dry to sleep when flood waters decline and short-term shelters shut.

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

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ regional real estate and for northeast NSW, has been on the front lines 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 rainfall flooding the space.

On any offered 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 fixed.

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

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

She said the homeless were attempting to find any dry locations they could sleep across a northern NSW region currently handling a dire lack of affordable housing.

“We’ve been assisting an entire household sleeping in their vehicle,” Ms Kennedy stated.

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

The Byron Shire city government location, 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 definitely do have a real estate issue in the Northern Rivers and we require options,” Ms Kennedy said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns stated evacuation centres established in schools, universities, gyms and clubs might not function as a long-term repair to entrenched housing problems in the area.

“I am completely knowledgeable about the considerable challenges for housing in the Northern Rivers, however evacuation centres are not permanent options … we don’t have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allowance,” he said.

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

“So I want to apologise beforehand however we have to draw a very clear and understood line.”

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

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

Major flood warnings were still in location 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 debris that washed up after substantial swells damaged the coastline for days.

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

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

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

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