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‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable locals deal with a battle to discover food and somewhere dry to sleep when flood waters recede and temporary shelters shut.

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

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies’ local housing 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 consistent rains inundating the area.

On any given 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 fixed.

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

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

She said the homeless were searching for any dry locations they could sleep across a northern NSW area already dealing with an alarming scarcity of economical real estate.

“We have actually been assisting out an entire household oversleeping their cars and truck,” Ms Kennedy stated.

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

The 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 absolutely do have a housing problem in the Northern Rivers and we need options,” Ms Kennedy said.

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

“I am fully familiar with the substantial obstacles for housing in the Northern Rivers, however 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 locations once local emergency situation orders were raised, Mr Minns added.

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

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

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

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

In Pottsville, between Tweed Heads and Byron Bay, a whale carcass was amongst the debris that cleaned up after big swells damaged the shoreline for days.

Residents from 17 NSW city government areas who had lost income due to the storm would be qualified for federal catastrophe relief funds for approximately 13 weeks, it was revealed on Monday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the monetary support would be backed by psychological 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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