Walmajrri man Desmond Lawford has been sleeping rough in the tourist town of Broome during one of the most brutal tropical low’s the region has seen in years.
He and dozens of others have been forced to endure the town’s floodwaters, lightning storms and a torrential deluge, where parts of the region recorded record level rainfall.
With many of their normal haunts ruled out due to the unrelenting rain, Mr Lawford said he and many others had slept outside during last weekend’s damaging storms.
"We sleep with no rugs, all our clothes are fully wet," Mr Lawford said.
He said people slept on the verandah of a local bank for shelter.
Patrick Yamba, a Kukaja man from Balgo, was also in town with his partner visiting family when the downpour started.
They were offered a place to stay with his uncle, but having spent most of his life sleeping outdoors, Mr Yamba said he felt uncomfortable in a house.
“I want to sleep in open spaces, those walls make me hot,” he said.
But after the damaging extent of the weekend's storm hit, Mr Yamba said it was a decision he wished he could take back.
Terrified and drenched to the bone as the lightning crashed down, Mr Yamba and his partner chose to take shelter on the verandah at the local ABC bureau.
The struggles of the Broome rough sleeper population is one local Indigenous leader and Nyikina man Neville Poelina knows well.
Having grown up in a low income family, Mr Poelina said it was difficult to shift the image of the homeless people contending with the sheer might of last week's storm.
"It was bloody cold, the wind was howling flat-out, the water was running down the street, the rain was just about sideways," he said.
"We had three days of constant rain and I thought there must be people hungry in the street there.
Mr Poelina spent most of last week handing out curry and rice to Broome's rough sleepers, to ease the pressure brought on by the storm.
It was an act that resulted in accolades from locals, but for Mr Poelina, it was something he was only happy to do.
"I love cooking, I'm not a man who can cook for one — it's better for me to cook for 100," he said.
Liquor restrictions bring rough sleepers into town
Broome’s 'homeless' population is somewhat unique to the North West.
Many of those who come into the town throughout the year are from liquor restricted remote communities, who visit in order to buy alcohol, and to visit family and friends.
While some stay with locals, others choose to sleep at the town's main oval or at Kennedy Hill, a patch of bushland that overlooks Broome's iconic mangroves.
Mr Poelina said it was those people who often bolstered Broome's homeless population.
"You can't just cut an addict off," he said.
"The government has got a big part to play in this homeless issue."
He said the problem had not been fixed, just shifted.
Shelter WA chief executive Michelle MacKenzie said the recent storm had also only highlighted ongoing problems with homelessness around the state, including access to medication and communication with authorities.
"Rough sleepers often have really poor health and that can be exacerbated when it's very wet," she said.
"If you're unwell and you're living on the streets, where do you keep your medicines? Where do you keep things that you need?
"When you get a severe weather event like a cyclone, and you get the [alert], how do rough sleepers know that they need to evacuate?
"Often because people who are sleeping rough may not have a phone.
"They may not know what's happening, they may not know where the centres are — so they're more likely to be out in these extreme weather events.
