Maitland's ongoing accommodation shortage has fallen to an unprecedented and disturbing low, leaving struggling families no alternative but to sleep in cars and tents through freezing conditions.
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Frustrated city support service providers wish they could do more.
Each day homelessness support services like Carrie's Place in Maitland are turning away people looking for accommodation because there isn't anywhere near enough housing to meet the demand.
They are seeing more people come through their doors than ever before because of the lack of available housing - the recent cold snap only exacerbating the situation for those with no alternative but to sleep rough.
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The team at Carrie's Place are giving out tents, or gift cards to get fuel because people are sleeping in their cars.
Carrie's Place chief executive officer Jayne Clowes said the homelessness issue and housing crisis is nothing new but has been made worse after COVID saw people leaving cities in favour of regional areas like Maitland.
Program manager for specialist homelessness services at Carrie's Place, Ange Kiley, said the current rental market is seeing people turned away from house after house.
"I've just had a conversation today with a woman that we're working with who's rent went up $100 a week, and of course her income's not going up $100 a week which is really frightening in this market," she said.
"There's a very, very limited number of rentals, all of the clients we're working with are on a government benefit so they are priced out of the market, there's nothing much below $500 a week for a three bedroom property in this area."
Ms Kiley said they have more people coming through their doors who they've never seen before, even families with double incomes who still can't get a property because properties are so limited.
The mental toll this is putting on people experiencing homelessness is another layer.
"We've got clients that are applying for upwards of 100 properties before they're successful, we even had a family that had 300 applications before they got a property," Ms Kiley said.
"You can imagine what sort of impact that has on someone, constantly being rejected, but also they're either already homeless or they've only become homeless because they can't afford to stay where they are."
Ms Clowes said Carrie's Place is fortunate enough to have a lot of community support, and is working closely with real estate partners to try and find suitable rentals.
Their refuge accommodation services are bottlenecking because people who would usually be using the service for a short amount of time have nowhere to go.
"We're not in the business of turning people out back into homelessness, the outcome is meant to be moving them on to something more permanent and long term," Ms Kiley said.
"Prior to COVID we had an average of three months that clients would stay in refuge.
"Now we're looking at more like six months that people are having to stay there because there's no options to move on.
"That means we can help less people, which is actually very distressing for staff to not be able to support people."
Ms Kiley said the best way the community can help the huge amount of people experiencing homelessness is to let them know if you or your family has an empty property in the Maitland area.
"What we do know is there's lots of empty properties out there in the community, whether that be investment properties that they're just not renting or they've got a property that's owned by family," she said.
"People are desperate.
"If you're sitting on an empty property, we'd love to hear from you because we've got a whole long list of people that we can put forward.
"The payback (for the property owner) is knowing you've done something to help a really vulnerable family."
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