'Horrendous': Shelter Closures Pour On Housing Pain

Vulnerable citizens face a fight to discover food and somewhere dry to sleep when flood waters decline and short-term shelters shut.

Nearly 800 people have sought refuge in NSW evacuation centres however their status as pop-up homes for some will cease to exist after the effect of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred passes.

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies' regional and homelessness manager for northeast NSW, has actually been on the cutting edge supporting individuals sleeping rough in flooded zones.

Her task was made harder on Monday due to harm to Fred's Place, the Tweed Heads drop-in centre where she is based, with continuous rainfall swamping the area.

On any offered day, the centre serves about 130 hot meals to those in need however showers and laundry centers are out of commission till the flood damage is fixed.

"It has actually been a horrendous time for the homeless community," Ms Kennedy informed AAP.

"It has been truly tough attempting to get them any type of shelter."

She said the homeless were searching for any dry locations they might sleep throughout a northern NSW area already dealing with a dire scarcity of inexpensive real estate.

"We have actually been assisting a whole family sleeping in their automobile," Ms Kennedy stated.

"Seeing them in this horrendous weather condition is truly terrible."

The Byron Shire city government area, south of Tweed Heads, had the most rough sleepers of any council area in the state, according to a 2024 federal government street count.

"We definitely do have a real estate issue in the Northern Rivers and we require solutions," Ms Kennedy said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said evacuation centres established in schools, universities, health clubs and clubs could not act as a long-lasting fix to established real estate problems in the area.

"I am completely conscious of the substantial difficulties for housing in the Northern Rivers, however evacuation centres are not permanent services ... we don't have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allocation," he said.

The centres would close in all locations once local emergency situation orders were raised, Mr Minns included.

"So I wish to apologise in advance but we need to draw an extremely clear and understood line."

More than 10,000 individuals were under emergency situation cautions in NSW on Monday morning, while 1800 people were separated by floodwaters.

About 10,000 homes and companies were still not connected to power as heavy rain continued to fall in lots of locations.

Major flood cautions were still in place for parts of the Clarence and Richmond rivers, while clean-up operations were under way elsewhere.

In Pottsville, in between Tweed Heads and Byron Bay, a whale carcass was among the debris that cleaned up after big swells damaged the coastline for days.

Residents from 17 NSW city government areas who had actually lost earnings due to the storm would be eligible for federal disaster relief funds for as much as 13 weeks, it was revealed on Monday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the financial assistance would be backed by mental health services for impacted locations.

"We've got your back, that's my message to neighborhoods here," he said from Lismore on Monday.

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