Robyn Quarrell and her children are planning to sleep in their car.
A COLAC mother and her four children will sleep in their car tomorrow night if they fail to find accommodation.
Robyn Quarrell said she was desperate to stay in Colac and avoid moving her four youngest children, aged between six and 15 years old, to another town.
“As a young kid I moved around a lot and it didn’t help me,” Ms Quarrell said.
“I’ve lived in over 14 houses since I had my 18-year-old.”
Ms Quarrell told the Colac Herald in November of her concerns about a shortage of affordable housing in Colac and her fear of being homeless.
She said a tenancy tribunal decision forced out of her rented Colac home because her landlord applied to sell the house with vacant possession.
“I’ve been locked out and we’re staying with a friend but that means there’s 13 of us all together in a three-bedroom house and we have to be out by tomorrow.”
Ms Quarrell said she had searched for accommodation for her family through real estate agents, caravan parks, State Government public housing, and welfare agencies’ emergency housing services.
“I’ve got letters from my doctor and my family support officer, I’ve put my name down everywhere but I can’t get any help,” Ms Quarrell said.
“I have a degenerative disc problem in my back, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, depression and carpal tunnel syndrome,” she said.
Ms Quarrell, whose husband died in a car crash at Coragulac, north of Colac in 2006, said her income included Transport Accident Commission compensation, a disability pension and government family payments.
She said she could afford up to $300 a week for a home.
Colac community network group Our Kids Need You spokesman Chris Smith said he could not comment specifically on Ms Quarrell’s case because he was not aware of the situation.
But Mr Smith said the community had a role to play to help children “where we can”.
“There are young people within our community who don’t get to enjoy the benefits that most people deem as appropriate accommodation and welfare.”
This is terrible – why can’t people try to be at least a little more understanding?? how is this poor mother expected to survive off paying for expensive housing as well as utilities, when she can’t work ?? the government should perhaps create a few more public houses, or help out a little more for people with disabilities that are unable to work….show some compassion.
And i’m sorry but “our kids need you”??? Just did a google search – the only place i find any reference to this group is on this site. How exactly is someone supposed to contact them if they need help? Website, email address, ph number, office? Anything?
It might be planning to do good things, but most of us have never heard of it before.
A group that doesn’t actually help kids and has no way of being contacted for help, is worse than useless.
Emergency housing in Colac? Are you kidding me? Takes a flipping miracle to get any real help with housing in Colac and the real estate agencies are atrocious. She isn’t working so they will not give her a house come hell or high water.
I know of someone else who has had to move to another town because emergency housing services in Colac will not help until he is actually homeless. And then tell him it could be months, if ever, before they will help.
He can’t get on the priority housing list for the housing commission without a referral from so-called family support services in Colac and they won’t help him because they are not set up to help males. Mind you he’s been on the list for a commission house now for over 2 years and has never even received a single offer.
Emergency assistance in Colac is all but non-existant.