‘Horrendous’: Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable residents face a fight to find food and somewhere dry to sleep when flood waters decline and short-lived shelters shut.

Nearly 800 individuals have sought sanctuary 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 individuals sleeping rough in flooded zones.

Her task was made harder on Monday due to damage to Fred’s Place, the Tweed Heads drop-in centre where she is based, with consistent rainfall swamping the area.

On any offered day, the centre serves about 130 hot meals to those in need however showers and laundry centers run out commission till 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 kind of shelter.”

She stated the homeless were searching for any dry locations they could sleep throughout a northern NSW area already dealing with a dire lack of cost effective housing.

“We’ve been helping out a whole household oversleeping their automobile,” Ms Kennedy said.

“Seeing them in this horrendous weather is really 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 government street count.

“We absolutely do have a housing issue in the Northern Rivers and we require solutions,” Ms Kennedy stated.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said evacuation centres established in schools, universities, fitness centers and clubs could not serve as a long-lasting fix to entrenched real estate problems in the area.

“I am fully knowledgeable about the substantial obstacles for real estate in the Northern Rivers, but evacuation centres are not long-term solutions … we don’t have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allocation,” he stated.

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

“So I wish to apologise beforehand however 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 separated by floodwaters.

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

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

In Pottsville, in between Tweed Heads and Byron Bay, a whale carcass was among the particles that cleaned up after huge swells battered the shoreline for days.

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

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

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

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