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Flood victims sleep in cars

Prior to the recent disaster, not-for-profit organisation Micah Projects recorded 300 people sleeping rough each day in the city; the highest metropolitan rate of homelessness across the country.

But Micah spokeswoman Karyn Walsh said with the significant loss of housing throughout the city in the floods, many more people were now displaced with nowhere to go.

“We’ve seen a big increase in the number of homeless local people living in cars,” Ms Walsh said.

“Many people have had no choice.

“And there’s an acute shortage of affordable housing in the city already.”

Ms Walsh said many homeless people had initially sought refuge at flood evacuation centres, but the situation needed to be “closely monitored” now that they were no longer operating.

“What we see is a lot of lower to middle-class people now at much greater risk of homelessness,” she said.

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