By BELINDA PARKES
A SEVERE shortage of low-cost housing on the Tweed has pushed some residents below the poverty line and forced them to live at a Third World standard, according to friend of the homeless, John Lee.
Mr Lee, who founded the outreach charity You Have A Friend five years ago, says the high rental costs mean a significant number of residents are surviving on less than $2 a day after they pay their rent – and the situation is worsening.
He claims Tweed Heads has the longest average waiting list for supported housing in the state, with the 1000 people currently on the waiting list braced to wait an average of 20 years before they get a government home.
Anecdotally, the story is the same with one 67-year-old known to the charity having recently secured a public housing place of her own after 27 years.
Mr Lee says the parenting payment for one child was $342 a week, yet in 2010 the average rent for a two-bedroom home was $285.
This leaves a mother and her young child just $57 a week to pay bills, buy food and meet the costs of clothing and transport.
You Have A Friend is currently providing 320 meals on the streets every week, as well as providing food hampers to residents in caravan parks in Mt Warning, Wooyung and Chinderah.
He knows ‘plenty’ of people living in their cars but when the cars finally break down they are forced to walk away and that’s when they feel ‘really abandoned’ by the system.
“In the nine years I have supported the homeless and marginalised in the district I have never seen it so bad,” Mr Lee said.
He says there is a catch-22 scenario for people with no home unable to get a job, while those with no job are unable to find a home.
A report to Tweed council outlining the draft Northern Rivers Regional Affordable Housing Strategy report states Census 2011 figures reveal the Northern Rivers was the least affordable area in the state, and had worsened in the past five years.
It says up to 67 per cent of renters are experiencing housing stress and warns of ‘wider community consequences’ such an exodus of young workers from the area and longer commutes for people unless changes are made to make housing more affordable.
Mr Lee says council predictions of a further 38,000 people moving to the region in the next 18 years are alarming if the existing housing crisis and unemployment rate doesn’t improve.
He says there are 1000 people on the waiting list for supported accommodation in Tweed Heads, but only 50 of them will get housed in any one year.
Mr Lee says it is unrealistic to expect the government to spend millions of dollars building more housing, and also not practical.
“$1 million to buy a unit or build a few homes is not going to solve the problem as it will only help a few people,” he said.
