‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

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

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

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ local real estate and homelessness supervisor for northeast NSW, has actually been on the front lines supporting people sleeping rough in flooded zones.

Her job was made harder on Monday due to damage to Fred’s Place, the Tweed Heads drop-in centre where she is based, with consistent rains inundating the space.

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

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

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

She said the homeless were looking for any dry places they could sleep across a northern NSW area currently handling a dire shortage of economical real estate.

“We’ve been assisting a whole family sleeping in their cars and truck,” Ms Kennedy said.

“Seeing them in this horrendous weather is actually awful.”

The Byron Shire city 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 definitely do have a real estate issue in the Northern Rivers and we need solutions,” Ms Kennedy stated.

NSW Premier Chris Minns stated evacuation centres established in schools, universities, health clubs and clubs might not act as a long-term fix to entrenched real estate issues in the region.

“I am fully familiar with the substantial obstacles for real estate in the Northern Rivers, however evacuation centres are not permanent services … we do not have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allocation,” he stated.

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

“So I want to apologise ahead of time but we need to draw a really clear and understood line.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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