Kerry Storton reckons she has slept in 20 different beds since her house at Wardell was damaged in the floods that ravaged the Northern Rivers region almost nine months ago.
"I live out of tubs," she said.
"I've stayed with five sets of friends and I've had something like 20 different beds (if I include) house sitting and weekends away.
"[I ask myself] how long can I stay before I wear out my welcome? Where can I go to next?"
Ms Storton said she had been unable find an affordable rental property or builders to do the repairs to make her home liveable again.
"The [options were] so narrow and limited anyway for housing, when you take out most of Lismore what I could afford wasn't available," she said.
"I thought I had a builder (only) to be informed four months later that they weren't going to come and repair it, I'm back to square one."
Housing services swamped
A new report from the University of NSW City Futures Research Centre explores the impact of housing vulnerability on climate disaster recovery, with a focus on the 2022 Northern Rivers floods.
The researchers found regional housing markets could not withstand widespread property losses caused by natural disasters because of already limited rental stock.
Lead author Ryan van den Nouwelant says more should be done to safeguard people against homelessness after severe weather events.
The report quoted figures from 2016 that show more than 2,300 people across the region already living in "compromised dwelling conditions" included the homeless, people in tents and those staying with friends or in crowded dwellings.
Mr van den Nouwelant said those already experiencing housing stress were particularly vulnerable in the wake of a natural disaster because support services many relied on were swamped.
"These organisations that provide housing services were also flood-affected themselves," he said.
"So that sort of restraint on their own capacities, coupled with the increased demand for them to get involved in other emergency response processes really did put a dent in their capacity to respond."
The report made a number of recommendations to:
- Identify ways for people to move out of emergency accommodation and into semi-permanent medium-term housing
- Develop more detailed planning around any proposed "pod home" villages
- Develop a more sustainable ongoing social housing sector.
Call to review Lismore planning laws
North coast-based welfare group Social Futures was one of a handful of similar groups which commissioned the study.
Chief executive Tony Davies said the call for more social housing was nothing new.
He said a change in planning laws in flood-affected areas like Lismore could provide an alternative, or at least complementary, solution.
"We need to start planning so that this crisis management becomes part of our business as usual," he said.
"If we have to build in areas where you'll get six metres of water over the land, we need to look at how we build."
Mr Davies said he knew a local developer who had finance and was ready to build up to 300 apartments in Lismore.
"The barrier to them is actually getting height restrictions changed so they can build several levels of car parking underneath," he said.
"So these units will actually be above flood level.
"We've got to start looking at solutions like that so we can get that housing stock back into areas like the Northern Rivers.
"Because if we don't we'll find that those who have lived her for a long time, particularly those on lower incomes, won't be able to live in the Northern Rivers any more."
