Outside her mother's funeral this week, prominent Larrakia elder June Mills Gudbiling anointed family and community leaders with white ochre she had collected and ground up that morning.
They were honouring her mother, Kathy Mills OAM, a leader and activist in the Aboriginal community.
After the service, June Mills had nowhere to go but back to but her car.
"I'm homeless. I am able to stay here and there with family now and again, but pretty much I'm living in the car," she said.
June Mills Gudbiling is well known in Darwin for performing Welcome to Country ceremonies, teaching children traditional stories and language, advocating for better approaches to youth justice and tackling climate change.
She does much of this work for free while living on welfare.
Now she's been evicted from public housing in Darwin's northern suburbs, and said she cannot afford anywhere to live.
Ms Mills Gudbiling admits she was a messy public housing tenant.
She was told by NT Housing that she no longer qualified for a three-bedroom house because she has only one son still living with her.
They rejected the offer of a singles flat for both of them, because it only had one bedroom.
"In the end, they came to say it was about fire, that a power cord was a fire hazard," she said.
"But they kept changing the story: It was because I had an unregistered car … there was long grass that needed mowing … it was messy."
NT Housing would not comment on Ms Mills Gudbiling's case but said anyone who has had their tenancy terminated for a variety of reasons cannot apply for public housing again in the territory for two years.
Housing not considered a human right
The chief executive of the NT Shelter housing advocacy group, Peter McMillan, is calling on the territory government to work harder on avoiding evictions in the jurisdiction that already has the worst homeless statistics in the country.
"In the NT, we have one in 20 people who are homeless. That corresponds with one in 200 people who are homeless across Australia," he said.
"So, we have such a significant housing shortage, and an increase in the number of people who are either homeless, or at risk of homelessness, is the last thing that we can really afford to see."
NT Shelter is also appealing to both levels of government to commit more resources to easing the housing squeeze in Indigenous communities, public housing and the private rental market.
Mr McMillan said having somewhere to live should be considered a human right.
"Back in 1948, there was a charter on human rights agreed at the United Nations, Article 25, which makes it very clear people have a right to housing.
"We should have that. Countries like France and Scotland and others have agreed to that and, in their case, they've been able to give commitments that anyone who is evicted from last-resort housing, that should only happen when there's an exit plan.
"And when tenancies are starting to get into difficulty, that's where support agencies should be coming in to work with government, to work on their difficult tenants, and get things back on track before they get out of whack."
Indigenous people make up 30 per cent of the Northern Territory's population, but 88 per cent of them are homeless.
Northern Territory's public housing waitlist ranges from two to eight years, and evictions have risen from one in the past four years to eight so far this year.
Some were not because of the tenant's fault.
'I can live in a tent'
Aboriginal health worker Simon Johnston can't understand why he has been evicted, along with seven children, from Indigenous public housing in Tennant Creek.
"It makes you angry because kids are involved and there's four kids under five and nowhere else to go with them," he said.
The organisation managing the house, Julalikari, told the ABC there were no complaints about the family.
However, it said, Mr Johnston was only ever given the property as temporary accommodation, and the NT government has asked for the house back to provide youth programs.
Mr Johnston has had to split up his family and bring them to relatives in Alice Springs and Groote Eylandt.
He said he cannot find a private rental in Tennant Creek at the $400 a week he was paying for the public house.
"There's a lot of people in Tennant Creek looking for houses but can't find any, and the prices are pretty expensive," he said.
"But, being on my own now, I can go and live in a tent.
Mr Johnston said he and other Tennant Creek residents have been frustrated hearing the Northern Territory and federal politicians promise to provide more Indigenous public houses in Tennant Creek.
The Northern Territory government said it built 10 Indigenous town camp houses there last year, after several years of no new houses being provided.
It has promised that, in Tennant Creek and surrounding remote communities, 141 new houses are coming, although it hasn't said by when.
Mr Johnston remains sceptical.
"People aren't taking notice anymore of these promises, because we are used to those kind of words being spread and then nothing being delivered," he said.
Northern Territory 'being ripped off'
The territory's new Chief Minister, Natasha Fyles, says her government will speed up its plan to provide more Aboriginal public housing.
"We have got on with that job but it takes time," she said.
Mr McMillian estimates the territory is currently 9,000 public and affordable houses short, and this is expected to rise to 15,000 within 15 years.
"In the Northern Territory, we receive 1 per cent of [federal government] funding for homelessness, despite having 11 per cent of the population [homeless], so we get $20 million, compared to $170 million that Western Australia gets for far fewer homeless people," he said.
"So we're calling that a $167-million-a-year rip-off for the Northern Territory."
As June Mills Gudbiling walked back to her car after the funeral, all her remaining belongings were piled up in the back seat.
She said she feels unable to ask her kids, who have their own big families, if she can stay.
