Since moving in, they’ve witnessed their iconic Aussie neighborhood evolve, with older homes on their street gradually replaced by new townhouses and luxury penthouses.
Last November, Deidre and Valerie received an eviction notice, at which point they were paying $900 a week for the same modest apartment.
Deidre, 65, works part-time as a food merchandiser for a bread company, and her 83-year-old mother is on the disability support pension.
Despite their low income, they were able to pay the rent on their Bondi apartment by taking in a boarder in their spare bedroom.Â
Then came the sudden eviction notice.
“All four units received the eviction notice because the owner cited urgent structural work,” Deidre explained.
The tenants appealed their case at the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and were able to get an extension, giving them until June 8 to move out.
Deidre and Valerie applied for urgent social housing when they were given the eviction notice, but have been told they are ineligible for support because their income is around $100 above the weekly $1100 threshold.Â
Since then, the pair have been unable to find another private rental they can afford, and have found themselves unexpectedly homeless.
The mother and daughter have been forced to rely on the kindness of their friends.Â
“We have been separated. I went to stay with one friend on their couch and my mum went to stay with another friend,” Deidre said.
Deidre said it had been incredibly hard to live away from her mother, who she described as her “best friend”.
But their perilous housing situation had been even tougher on Valerie, her daughter said.
The stressful and expensive process of having to put all their belongings in storage proved too much for her, Deidre said.
“It was horrendous and Mum didn’t handle it well.Â
“She was hospitalised a couple of weeks ago. She just had a turn.
“She was so frightened that she lost her voice.
“The ambulance was called and when I got to the hospital and explained, they said it’s probably the stress.”
Her mother had regained the use of her voice now, but the situation remained incredibly traumatic for her, Deidre said.
“She just keeps crying. We are trying to look at finding another private rental around this area, because she has got her friend, doctor and support network here, but they are all at least $1200 a week, so we just can’t do that,” Deidre said.
Deidre and Valerie have been getting some help from the Wayside Chapel in the form of food vouchers and some assistance with storage costs for their belongings.
Wayside Chapel case worker Sean Haughian said Deidre and Valerie represented a new face of homelessness, where previously stable tenants were suddenly unable to find housing due to an unforeseen change in circumstances and the city’s cutthroat rental market.
“They’re not your typical people who you would expect to be at risk of homelessness,” he said.
“It’s a particularly awful case, with no one to blame, really, it’s just the system.”
While the case worker was trying to liaise with Homes NSW for emergency temporary accommodation, he said it felt like he was running out of options.
“We have tried to get them into temporary accommodation. But, even if they got temporary accommodation, they would not be put together, as far as I know, and it would not suit them. They need to have a stable environment,” he said.
