Housing and homelessness problems in regional New South Wales have reached a crisis point, with legal advocates fielding a surge in calls for assistance.
Legal Aid NSW says services provided to clients at risk of losing their homes have increased by 53 percent in the past year.
Calls for help have mostly come from regional areas, where the combination of tree-changers and widespread flooding has gutted the affordable rental market.
“There’s basically no social housing available,” one beneficiary of the legal assistance, Joel Renshaw, told AAP.
The Gubbagunyo man and Lismore resident evacuated his temporary accommodation in February due to flooding and moved into his mother’s one-bedroom flat.
As he wasn’t the authorised occupant of his mother’s tenancy, he was faced with homelessness when she later moved out.
Legal Aid’s advocacy, coupled with support from local MP Janelle Saffin, allowed him to stay in the one-bedroom rental despite the technical breach in policy, he said.
Renshaw, who lives with a disability, said it wasn’t as easy as some critics may say to get a job and find a private rental.
“I have worked most of my life until I sustained an injury—it’s very difficult to exist on government benefits, without people like Legal Aid advocating for you,” he said.
“(Housing) is a cornerstone, a foundation of anyone’s existence and their wellbeing.”
Legal Aid solicitor Natalie Bradshaw said calls for help had massively increased in the past two years.
“Regional areas are bearing the brunt of it,” she said.
“Housing problems are one of the largest civil law areas for our clients, and these problems are often associated with other legal issues.
“Increasing numbers of clients need legal assistance to save their tenancies or access the support they need to take the first steps to overcome homelessness.”
The Productivity Commission in September said the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement had failed to address the problem and was too focus on systems, not people.
Among dozens of recommendations, it called for an overhaul of rent subsidies and the redistribution of first home buyer grant funding to schemes that help those at high-risk of homelessness.
The NSW government on Thursday released figures showing 2500 rezoning lots and around 30,000 dwellings had been approved in the September quarter.
“Housing supply and affordability is complex and there is no single solution, but we are supercharging infrastructure and supply, helping homebuyers get a head start and investing in social, affordable and Aboriginal housing,” NSW planning department official Monica Gibson said.
