As Daniela Gonzalez sits under her awning, surrounded by tall pot plants and two wind chimes tinkling in the breeze, you cannot wipe the smile off her face.
Daniela was one of the first people to move into a makeshift village of recovery pods set up to house people left homeless by the floods in the NSW Northern Rivers.
It is a long way from the uncertainty she had faced since the floods ruined the caravan she was living in at a South Lismore caravan park.
After the flood receded, Daniela spent time at a neighbour's house, then with a friend.
Eventually she moved back into her sodden, unusable caravan, sleeping in a swag.
"I had to gut it because it started to smell, the food was rotting, the clothes, it was horrendous," she said.
"I just didn't know what I was going to do, where I was going to go, it was getting cold and I was miserable."
Daniela received a text message from Service NSW to see if she was interested in a pod (a single room unit similar to a donga) on a Thursday. She had a viewing the following Monday and was thrilled to move in that night.
Daniela was given 12 months' accommodation in her pod.
"For one year I know, OK, I can drive down if I want to fix [my caravan] or if I have to get rid of it or whatever I'm going to do, but I'm stable for a year and I don't have to be going anywhere," she said.
Villages in the making
At the Wollongbar sports fields, about 20 minutes from Lismore, one row of pods is open and inhabited.
The pods, provided by the Minderoo Foundation, look like shipping containers that have been converted into living spaces with kitchens, bathrooms and washing machines.
They were developed after the Black Summer bushfires and sleep up to four people.
Larger demountable buildings will be installed for bigger families, and mobile homes sit just down the hill for people needing shorter stays.
About 10 people have moved into the pods so far but the site, which is still under construction, is expected to house about 220 people when complete.
North Coast Community Housing (NCCH), an established affordable housing provider, is overseeing the site and its tenants.
Extra services are being provided, including a security presence and support workers and case workers to assist the tenants to recover.
"Housing is the easy part. The difficult part and most important part is meeting people where they're at," said NCCH chief executive John McKenna.
The state government said it will establish about 800 more pods at eight other locations in the coming weeks.
Work has started at Pottsville North in the Tweed Shire, while other sites have been selected at Wardell, Evans Head, Lindendale, Lismore and Woodburn.
The temporary villages could remain in place for up to two years, depending on need, before being dismantled and the sites rehabilitated.
Not just a house but a home
Daniela said NCCH encouraged her to bring plants and the few items she salvaged from her caravan to make her pod more homely.
"It's lovely," she laughed.
"I know that sounds really cliché but it's not, it's really lovely.
Mr McKenna said NCCH was planning to introduce classes and activities for the tenants as well.
"We can talk to people, find out what they were doing before the floods, and then look at whether we can connect them back in to doing some of those activities in the village," he said.
"Helping them get back to as close to what normal was before the flood."
Daniela said she had spent hours talking to her new neighbours in the nearby pods and valued the sense of community.
"That's what I liked about the caravan park, it wasn't isolated – and that's what I like about here, too, they're all really friendly," she said.
Daniela said she hoped 12 months in her pod would bring her some financial security and time to find a new home but, despite the difficulty she faced in the floods, she remained committed to the Northern Rivers.
"There's something here that's like nowhere else, so I think I would definitely find something here, somewhere it doesn't flood," she said, laughing.
