Around hundred residents met at the Lismore Quad on Saturday to demand the demolitions of heritage homes cease, the flood recovery promised is delivered, and that every person be housed.
Housing advocate group, House You said, ‘The wastage of these homes is destroying the community; relocation and reuse for public housing and community use must occur, no family should sleep rough’.
‘The event was organised within a short week turnaround in urgent response to the Auditor General’s report, that confirmed that the NSW RA failed to effectively plan and administer Australia’s most expensive flood recovery program.
‘Of the 31,000 households impacted in Lismore alone, by the 2022 disaster, just 1000 homes have been supported across the Northern Rivers region, in more than four years’.
What was missing from that report, was the human cost. Not only did the NSW RA fail to make our homes resilient, but our community continues to pay a price, with their health and wellbeing -as a consequence of these failures. Witnessing the destruction of houses when people are homeless makes no sense. Not to mention the materials and waste, it is horrific to live in the vicinity of these contradictions and failures. You don’t get back heritage homes once they are gone. It is blatantly the wrong course of action, that is partly why it being done in such a hurry.’ said Antoinette O’Brien, Lismore artist and event co-organiser.
MPs invited but no show
Co-organiser of the event and House You founder, Chels Hood Withey, added, ‘Lismore MP, Minister for the North Coast & Recovery, Janelle Saffin, was invited to attend; Page MP, Kevin Hogan was invited to speak, as was the NSW Reconstruction Authority. Despite the invitations, Janelle, nor Kevin, nor the RA, showed up, who was there? Again, it is the community, those who are already stretched thin; facing housing stress, battling through their flood recovery’.
‘Those who showed up today are those who have the compassion, and the integrity to know what is right and gather in support of what this region needs and deserves.
Chels spoke at the event: ‘We’ve been here before, we’ve been here for years. Our community hasn’t stopped fighting. We all have a story of housing stress, the disaster, the second disaster of the failed recovery, the struggles in a system that denies us our basic human rights. Mothers unhoused and unable to see their children. People dying from hypothermia sleeping on the streets of Lismore. ‘While homes are boarded up, fenced off, and now again being crushed to landfill. Housing is the foundation for everything.’
‘A healthy happy life. Without it, we struggle. Tax dollars bought these homes, making them publicly owned. We must see them used for the public housing this community desperately needs.
‘The RA needs to deliver the flood recovery we were promised and we deserve’.
MCd by local Greens Lismore Councillor, Virginia Waters, shared the community’s sentiment, we say: no more excuses, no more delays, no more decisions made without us.
‘We call on the NSW RA to keep its promises: Stop the demolitions: the decision-making process and criteria must be transparent. The waste of heritage homes and quality materials has to stop.
‘Repurpose existing houses: homes must be used for public housing and community use. Our community has been calling for this for years. It is time the NSW RA delivered what our community needs.
‘Make Resilient Lands affordable and accessible: land releases mean nothing if flood-impacted people cannot afford them. Relocation contracts must be genuinely extended; not just “considered”.
‘Extended deadlines must benefit every home: hard-won community advocacy secured the 2028 deadline extension. Every home requiring resilient support must have a workable timeline. Deadlines must not drive demolitions.’
‘Speakers included Miriam Torzillo who asked what might happen if the RA saw this as an opportunity rather than a threat, and had penned an imaginary letter to the RA for an imagined future, thanking them for being brave enough to change their ways of working, in order to leave behind “a legacy of truly innovative policy, genuine consultation and transparency and real concern and care for community.’
‘Jimmy Willing, a beloved Lismore artist, spoke truth to power, advocating that the homes must be reoccupied, if there is any chance at saving them.
‘The closing address led by Sue Higginson, NSW Member of the Legislative Council shared ”While our leaders may exercise their power on Macquarie Street, with the politics of fear, hate and division. Never forget, the real power will and always will be with the people. Us, coming together like today, and demanding that our leaders do the work, the simple work. Stop the gaslighting, acknowledge the failure, listen to the community and deliver what we all need and deserve.’
‘The next community meeting to work together on further action will be held at The Winsome & Lismore Soup Kitchen (11 Bridge Street) on Tuesday 16 June at 5pm’, said House You.
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