Northern Rivers Housing Crisis 2022
(Part 1 of 2)
Dr Josephine Browne
This blog post is Part 1 of a Two-Part series that summarises the August 2022 TASA Thursday event regarding the NSW Northern Rivers Housing Crisis.
Australians were shocked in February this year by the sudden and unanticipated flood levels in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, and the extreme measures of rescue that community members undertook to save each other using kayaks and surfboards, often from roofs or roof cavities, as the community had sought safety as water rapidly rose overnight.
The media focused on Lismore in particular, but as the water receded, so did the media, and, with them, the consciousness of the after-effects of the Northern Rivers floods within the national psyche.
As a member of this community, I was concerned that we explore the ongoing impacts and efforts toward recovery, particularly regarding housing justice. The floods had destroyed, or rendered uninhabitable, around three thousand homes. Mould was growing over everything in homes, up walls and over ceilings. Roads still remain unfixed and isolated communities cut off. By August, some food drops had only recently ceased. People continue to live in cars, tents and caravans.
What to do if you find mould in your house
In a world where we face increasing uncertainty regarding the intensity and frequency of extreme events brought about by climate change, nowhere brought this more to the public’s attention than the Northern Rivers, where two major flood events occurred within four weeks as La Nina weather systems were able to hold more moisture than previously, due to the heating planet. A third consecutive La Nina is now forecast for our Summer. For a region already experiencing a housing crisis, intensified through Covid and the move from capital cities, which saw our rents increase by around 40%, our situation is dire.
What happens when the media leaves and community members are still suffering and in need of recovery support?
In August, we ran a TASA Thursday to discuss some of the ongoing issues, what was needed and what we could do about it. A range of community leaders kindly joined us to let us know what they were seeing on the ground in the aftermath of the floods, and what action we might take to rebuild our communities.
Brendan Ross, the coordinator of the Northern Rivers Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service, based in Lismore, explained that their offices were flooded and their work practices had changed. The service was more deeply connecting to other services, acknowledging the wide and complex needs of those facing homelessness, many for the first time. Staff changed their practices, and responded to community need for face to face conversations, attending recovery centres and working closely with those involved in community development. In the local hyper-competitive rental market, people were already priced out, and this worsened due to the floods. 
Brendan described the ‘crushing reality of how homelessness impacts people…how people feel about themselves, how they navigate their lives…under continuous housing stress’. The organisation is continuing to deal with the aftermath of the floods, with the impact of the housing situation described as ‘immeasurable’. Brendan pointed out the need for sustained help – that it would take a decade of work for the community he was a part of to recover.
The founder and CEO of local homelessness charity, ‘You have a Friend’, John Lee OAM, spoke next about his experiences working on the streets. John has worked for twenty-two years among homeless people in the area. His organisation is based in Tweed Heads but services Uki, Mount Warning, Murwillumbah, Pottsville and Coolangatta, particularly with meals and essentials. ‘You Have A Friend’ provides over three hundred meals per week, with eighty volunteers as their work force. During the floods, they were particularly active in Chinderah and Lismore. John noted their assistance across floods during 2011, 2017 and now 2022.
His concern was a lack of support from the local council, as he reported on the despair of elderly residents who had lost everything and had little capacity to recover. Promised housing pods were slow to arrive and set up (to date, there were 39), and John was concerned these were offered only on a temporary, two-year basis, which still does not address the structural lack of housing for the region, now exacerbated by over five hundred local homes being damaged through flooding.
You Have A Friend is a 100% not for profit organisation. No one in the charity is paid. and we do not accept any government funding.
All donations to You Have A Friend go to supporting the homeless and marginalised
Sponsorship can be by way of financial donations, donations of tinned food, toiletries or donations to our Op Shop.
All donations over $2.00 are tax deductible. All donations will receive a receipt.
CLICK HERE to support 'You Have A Friend'
John also described the prejudice and resistance he has seen among some parts of the community regarding the homeless population. He spoke of his experiences supporting single mothers living in cars, seeking food and clothing, as they tried to care for school-aged children, afraid they might be reported to DOCS and have their children removed. Others were sleeping under bridges and in parks, with children still attending school. John has been a persistent advocate for the homeless in our region for over two decades, and has powerful stories about their suffering, as well as experience with some of the challenges and prejudices they face on community and structural levels.
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We also heard from Simone Hickey, Senior Financial Counsellor at Lismore and District Financial Service. Simone began by acknowledging that she had herself received counselling for survivor’s guilt, as she was assisting a devastated community, including colleagues who had lost their houses, but her own home was not affected. The offices of the service were inundated, and staff used caravans provided by Lifeline in order to provide assistance in person at recovery centres, such as that set up at the Southern Cross University campus. Simone noted the service covers a vast area, including Murwillumbah, Tweed and Lismore. Four additional staff have been funded to assist the flood recovery specifically and will be working in this capacity, particularly on insurance claims, for the next two years.
To be continued…
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