A mum and her four kids are forced to live out of her car as they can’t find a home to rent.
Shikera Maher has said she has been left emotionally and physically exhausted and distressed by their ongoing struggles.
The mum, from Ipswich in Australia, along with her teenage children, have been living in their car for over five weeks now.
Their last rental lease ended in July last year and since then they have spent the time first crashing at their friends before ending up all sleeping in their car.
They have been desperately searching for accommodation, but the lack of affordable and available rental properties has left them homeless and the mum at the end of her tether.
Shikera has had nearly 300 applications for homing rejected during the time they’ve been living out of their car.
She told 9News: “I just want a house. I just want my kids to have stability back. I would die for a home.”
Now, due to their reliance on the car, the mum spends hundreds of dollars a week keeping the vehicle cool with air conditioning overnight.
She has said she has the money to pay rent but low availability forced her family out.
Before they ended up in the car, the mum and her kids, aged 13, 15-year-old twice, and 18, lived with friends for weeks at a time.
But the domestic abuse survivor said the stress of constantly moving was proving too difficult given the size of her family, and that most friends had small houses.
Given their situation, the children had to stop going to school for some time because it was too difficult for them to concentrate.
Speaking to the Daily Mail Australia, Shikera said: "I don't wish the situation on anyone, not even my worst enemy.
"It's not a way to live, driving from one park to another because we can't stay in the same place.
"It’s a very hard situation. We have to hang blankets on the car windows at night so people don’t look in."
After so many rejections, the mum has tried to contact rental agencies to see why she’s been having no luck so far.
The mum-of-four has claimed that she doesn’t qualify for public housing because one of her children, then aged eight, damaged the last home provided for her by the government back in 2012 and she is still paying off the debt.
The family are on a waiting list for crisis accommodation as they remain sleeping in their car and using friends’ bathrooms to wash.
The mum sleeps in the driver’s seat, with her eldest in the front passenger seat and the three youngest teens sleeping in the back with the family’s belongings.
The family were offered temporary accommodation in a motel outside the city but Shekira turned it down as her kids need to go to school and worries about fuel costs.
In Ipswich, Australia, the rental vacancy rate is 0.9 per cent.
