VICKIE Clutterbuck feels she is on borrowed time.
After renting a Lemon Tree Passage house for seven years, Ms Clutterbuck received a no grounds eviction notice on June 3.
The owner plans to sell the property.
"I've done everything I possibly can and I just can't get a house, I keep getting knocked back," said Ms Clutterbuck, who worked in aged care until an injury and is now a carer for her ill mum.
She had been paying $360 a week in rent - always in full and on time - and said other nearby and available properties were around $500.
If she paid this, she said, she would not be able to afford any other bills for her and her daughter, Cassie.
"I've applied for close to 20 in four weeks, I've got to apply for whatever I can and cross my fingers and hope something comes through, but it's just not happening," she said.
"I'm petrified and I'm scared as hell and I'm upset. It just shouldn't be happening."
Ms Clutterbuck and Cassie, 19, who is on a traineeship, were due to leave the property last Friday. While their belongings are packed, they have not yet left the house because they have nowhere to go.
She said the real estate agency told her on Monday it was going to apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal for help with the eviction.
"I don't even know where I'm going to put my stuff," she said.
"I said to the real estate the other week 'What do you want me to do, I'm doing everything I can, do you want me to put the stuff on my back and walk it down the street and just leave it?'
"What do I do? I have no money and no backup... my mental health is really bad, I've now gone into counselling. I don't want much, I just want a roof over our heads that I can afford to live in. That's all I'm asking for."
Ms Clutterbuck said Hume Community Housing told her that her two dogs were a "blockage" to being considered for temporary accommodation, such as in a motel, but they were a part of her family.
"At this stage because I refuse to get rid of my dogs, they've been like my therapy dogs, I'm going to be staying in my car," she said.
"So I'll stay in my car and keep applying and keep trying to do what I can to get us a house.
"I've been in touch with the Department of Housing, MPs, I also emailed Anthony Albanese, I'm going all out there and I'm just getting anyone I can and just grabbing on to them and trying to do what I can.
"I've never seen anything like it and I know I'm not the only one.
"I'm reading so many stories of mums in their cars with kids and tents and I get so upset and start crying because it shouldn't be happening and it's just like no one cares about us. No one cares."
Port Stephens MP Kate Washington said Ms Clutterbuck was one of an increasing number of constituents at immediate risk of homelessness who had contacted her office for help in recent months.
Many are renters who have seen their property owners want to sell or move back in.
"What we have seen here is a significant increase in people seeking our support, but in addition to the usual people seeking assistance - we've still got people already in the system having trouble accessing emergency housing and all of that, which is a constant - we're seeing that change in demographic where we've also got long-term reliable renters at immediate risk of homelessness. We're seeing a rise overall, as well as an entirely new demographic."
She said they had exhausted every option available.
"They've spoken to everyone they should have spoken to who are all trying to find something, but they've got nothing left to offer," she said.
"They're now on a public housing waiting list... it's 10 years. It's not a solution for now. It's people with connections to communities, their kids are in the school, they're caring for other family members in the area, they want to stay local because otherwise it disadvantages their kids and their family."
Port Stephens Family and Neighbourhood Services assistant manager Ann Fletcher said her agency was also seeing an increasing number of long-term renters - in some cases dual income couples in lower paying jobs - being evicted because the landlord wanted to sell or increase their weekly rent, in some cases by hundreds of dollars.
"We're having a look at people who have been in their rentals for five or 10 years and they're usually on a fixed income and they can't compete in the current market," she said.
"All we can really do is assist them with the temporary accommodation system, which is facilitated by Hume [Community] Housing... [and] usually some type of motel accommodation and they will stay in that situation until such time as a miracle might happen and they get an application approved, but we have people applying for 70, 100, 150 houses with no luck."
Ms Fletcher said her agency received funding to help 348 people but had assisted 879 over the past financial year, including 33 aged over 60.
This is up from 357 people including nine aged over 60 in the year to June 30, 2019.
"So many people say they would never have imagined in a million years they'd be in that situation," she said.
"There's a lot of mental health support required... that whole thing of 'You're only ever one pay packet away from homelessness' is really starting to ring true."
Ms Washington said inadequate investment in social housing for more than a decade had contributed to the current "desperate" situation.
"Last year we had $67,000 in the budget for social housing and this year they increased it to $130,000," she said.
"That's pathetic and goes nowhere near addressing any of the problems we've got.
"Even Hume Housing is using private rentals because they haven't got enough public housing, so they've stepped into that market and are offering reduced rent and paying the difference."
She said more social housing was "needed everywhere" across her electorate.
"It's old, it's crumbling and we haven't got enough," she said.
She said a Raymond Terrace property comprising several units was being removed from the National Rental Affordability Scheme program, which allows low to moderate income earners to rent private homes for at least 20 per cent below market value.
She said the rents were poised to go up 200 per cent.
"They aren't turning on their heaters, they aren't eating food, they've got no other options and they're trying to work out how they pay more when they've got no increase in their income, because most of them are single and on pensions."
Ms Fletcher said strict income eligibility for social housing meant some people found their income was too high to apply for a property, "yet it's not high enough to complete with other people able to pay $500, $600, $700 a week for a rental".
Some look to secure a weekly rate with a motel or less popular caravan park, others try to stay with relatives and friends; or if they have a vehicle pay to camp at a showground.
"Typically during these winter months we would have seen the holiday rental market open up to us," she said.
"Now because so many people are holidaying at home a lot of those, they're not coming on the market at all.
"We're seeing a lot of people evicted during the school holiday period from caravan parks because they can't afford the $1500 a week.
"They'll charge you $800 for a piece of grass to put a tent on anywhere on the coast."
A NSW government spokesman said there was $2.8 billion in this year's state budget "to improve housing supply and ensure locals and key workers moving to the regions have a place to call home".
He said this included almost $328 million to increase housing across regional NSW by "fast-tracking planning, building new homes, upgrading social housing, bolstering key worker accommodation and unlocking government-owned land as well as creating a 10-year housing pipeline to boost housing and infrastructure delivery in the regions".
Another $37 million would build about 120 new social housing dwellings.
"We know that we can't tackle this issue alone," he said.
"It is why we signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Newcastle to identify and co-fund opportunities to build more social housing over the next three years."
Rent assistance is available, he said, and anyone homeless or at risk of homelessness can contact Link2Home for 24-hour support.
Ms Fletcher said property owners needed to consider whether rent increases - and offering properties for holiday rentals only - were justified, while real estate agencies needed to review what proportion of their stock was sitting empty.
"I think we should have some kind of protection because the rental market, it's essentially based on an investment portfolio as opposed to providing shelter for human beings, which is a basic human right," she said.
"It's the mighty dollar but at what cost, because if you think of the amount of kids we have currently homeless and the trauma that's causing them...this is our next generation. What are we doing to them?
"It's an essential right and our children are being denied that, they're going to school from a motel or car or a caravan or sleeping on the lounge at Nanny's little one bedder."
Ms Clutterbuck said she drove through Raymond Terrace to care for her mum and regularly saw empty houses.
"Why? Why aren't people getting in these houses? It's just ludicrous," she said.
"Something needs to be done now about it for everybody, not just me, other people are in this situation too. I don't understand how its got to this point, we're Australia, how the bloody hell has this happened that people are living in cars?
"It shouldn't be happening at all. I just want a roof over my head. Housing is a basic human right and we are all entitled to that."
