UPDATE, Monday 1 September: The Member for Ballina has provided further comment about recent sheriff-enforced NSW Reconstruction Authority evictions.
Late last week Tamara Smith said her office had ‘worked closely with Chels and House You since the 2022 floods’.
‘My team and I have spent countless hours negotiating with the RA on their behalf,’ Ms Smith said via email.
‘We go to extraordinary lengths through my office to support individuals who are homeless or who face that prospect, including me funding programs from my own salary like the Hot Meals Centre in Ballina.’
EARLIER: The state member for Ballina says she is reluctant to take sides in a recent stand-off between local homeless people and the NSW government.
Greens MP Tamara Smith had compassion for everyone involved, she told Bay FM’s Community Newsroom last week, when it came to recent enforced evictions of ‘buyback’ occupants.
Sheriffs on behalf of the NSW Reconstruction Authority evicted people earlier this month living in properties sold to the agency through its Resilient Homes Program.
Most of those impacted were squatting in Lismore properties but one was in Mullumbimby, in the Ballina electorate.
One of the former Mullumbimby occupiers, Chels Hood Withey, later took up camp in a tent outside the electoral office of NSW Minister for Disaster Recovery and for the North Coast, Labor Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin.
The House You founder was joined by other homeless people and supporters in what became a stand-off between the housing advocates and staff at Ms Saffin’s office.
The campers said they wanted to meet with Ms Saffin but staff repeatedly called police to the scene until the campaigners left after eight days.
The group released a statement calling for the state government to enact several changes including rent caps and more investment in public housing, as well as an end to evictions from and demolitions of buyback homes while people were still homeless.
A ‘cacophony of issues,’ says Ballina MP of Resilient Homes Program
The Greens Member for Ballina said she wasn’t taking a side.
‘I think the tension has come from the fact that we’re in an acute homelessness crisis and housing crisis,’ Ms Smith said.
‘People are just beside themselves, and they’re seeing empty homes for long periods of time, or they’re seeing the futility of just demolishing when it could be used on a temporary basis,’ she said.
‘I also understand that if there’s suddenly a flood of that magnitude tomorrow, then those people are in harm’s way, and we’re in this catch 22,’ she said.
‘It sounds like I’m sort of, you know, not taking a side, and that’s the truth.’
There had ‘just been a cacophony of issues with the Resilient Homes Program,’ the Greens MP said.
‘In my world, in our area, we would be just entirely focused on house raising, retrofits and preparing and adapting,’ Ms Smith said, ‘Lismore is a very different reality’.
‘I share absolutely all of the activism, I know exactly where those activists are coming from,’ she said.
‘I also have some compassion for the fact that the Resilient Homes Program was designed to move high risk homes out of flood zones.’
Mullum buyback home to become ‘transitional housing’ post-evictions
The property in Mullumbimby, Chels Hood Withey said, hadn’t flooded although a second dwelling on the same site had been flood impacted.
Ms Smith said Housing NSW was converting the main house into ‘transitional housing’ for people at ‘high risk’ of homelessness.
‘People who are transitioning from rough sleeping, or it may be women seeking refuge,’ Ms Smith said, ‘so that’s excellent’.
Chels Hood Withey, meanwhile, said former occupants of the Mullumbimby home were on the social housing wait list and were offered ‘seven days in a motel’ or other accommodation described as unsuitable.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority had previously told them 40 buyback homes would be used for community housing, the House You founder said.
Ms Smith said she had been ‘informed by the member for Lismore’ that the promise would be ‘delivered and plus more’.
An earlier request for an interview with the Member for Lismore received an auto-reply of acknowledgement.
*Mia Armitage hosts Bay FM’s Community Newsroom every Friday from 11am, the interview with Member for Ballina Tamara Smith may be heard here.
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