By Stephanie Holliday
WHILE the flood clean-up at local facilities and public spaces continues, there are still residents displaced by the October floods in dire need of suitable housing.
Mooroopna resident Rebecca found herself without a home, after living in the same house for over 20 years and is still without answers or a solution for her situation.
Rebecca was assigned a representative from BeyondHousing but was left in the lurch when that person resigned from the organisation just before Christmas, with no successor to take on Rebecca’s case.
“Not that the initial person was overly helpful to be frank, but now there is no one to help me from BeyondHousing, they are experiencing staff shortages” Rebecca explained.
Rebecca is on the pension and lives with her infant son and two working adult children, and has two decades of perfect tenant history, but is still struggling to even find a suitable property directly through real estate agencies.
“Before the flood occurred there was already such a difficulty for many people to get a rental, now the situation has just exploded,” said Rebecca.
“I’ve applied for over 20 properties and have only heard back about two, which was to tell me I was unsuccessful.”
The emergency re-establishment payments of up to $43,850 for eligible households, whose homes were damaged or destroyed to help pay for clean-up, emergency accommodation, repairs, rebuilding and replacing essential household items have also been mismanaged, with Rebecca being unable to apply herself as stipulated by the application process, and no case worker able to do it on her behalf.
“I’m just shocked there’s no established protocol for long-term housing after natural disasters. I am continuously offered 10-day accommodation options, but it’s not viable to uproot and move every fortnight with a young child. There are also many families who were able to secure 3-month housing solutions in October and a lot of those are expiring in the coming weeks,” said Rebecca.
“I do get a weekly phone call to ask how my emotional wellbeing is holding up from a Government body, but I don’t need emotional support, what I need is a home for my family.”
