The heatwave that scorched Northern Australia over the weekend was almost unbearable for Gwen Brown in Tennant Creek.
"It was really hot. Too hot for anybody living here to move around," she said.
"I just sat outside and ran a hose and poured some water over me with clothes on, it was much cooler that way."
An extreme heat emergency alert was declared for most of the Northern Territory late last week and into the weekend, with residents urged to take precautions against "severe to extreme" high temperatures.
But as temperatures hit 43 degrees Celsius in Tennant Creek over the weekend, Ms Brown could hardly go into her two-room house, which has no power or water connected.
She is one of more than a dozen people living in and around some of Australia's worst housing — a collection of tin shed houses in Tennant Creek's Little Village Indigenous town camp.
Ms Brown, 68, was formerly a teacher and a police officer for 21 years in the remote community of Ali Curung.
She retired to Tennant Creek two years ago as she sought treatment for diabetes and to be near her family.
"It's really bad [in] these tin sheds. In summer it's really hot and in winter it's really cold," she said.
"I just have a little gas stove that I'm using to cook, and I have to walk to the nearest house to use their bathroom and shower."
Ms Brown said the Northern Territory Housing Department had told her she would have to wait nine years for a public house to become available in Tennant Creek.
"I just told them I can't sit around, I'm getting really old, I got diabetes I don't want to hang around in the hot summer," she said.
"I'd like to be somewhere where its nice and cool."
Her friend, Tennant Creek resident Debbie, said she was dismayed by Ms Brown's living conditions.
"I find it unbelievable to be in 2022 in Australia that people don't have any other choice but to live in places like this," she said.
"Tennant Creek seems like the forgotten land to me. The waiting lists are too long."
She said she had been dismayed to hear how long it would take her friend to get new housing.
"I took Gwen to Territory Housing and when she was inquiring about whether she was on a list, the first thing they said was 'it's a nine-year wait', before they even answered the question," she said.
"It was almost like there's no point, but it's not right that people are living in Third World conditions."
Housing program has 'gaps everywhere': advocate
Tennant Creek's Indigenous residents have long complained that there are also long waits to get into Aboriginal-only public housing in the town's camps.
The NT government said it was trying to address the shortfall of Indigenous housing by speeding up its program of building another $2 billion worth of Aboriginal public housing, co-funded by the Commonwealth government.
"We have accelerated that program. And we will continue to deliver as many houses as quickly as possible," NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said.
"There is a works plan right across the territory. We can't just click our fingers and have these houses built. It does take time."
The NT government has built 10 new public houses in Tennant Creek since coming to power in 2016, and it said it has built a total of 82 new homes in the whole Barkly region in which the town sits.
Across the territory, the government said it has built 488 of a planned 650 new Indigenous public houses, and extended 328, producing 1532 more bedrooms.
Skye Thompson, the head of the advocacy group Aboriginal Housing NT, said it had been very difficult to find out just how delayed the program was.
"We've got gaps everywhere in terms of delivery," she said.
"I'm yet to see the data on whether they will be able to deliver their committed bedroom numbers."
Ms Thompson said she was also worried the NT government was trying to speed up the program by providing many remote communities with prefabricated modular houses.
"It's a quick solution to get houses out on remote communities, but whether these buildings will be sustainable is a problem we are going to face in the near future," she said.
The ABC asked the federal government whether it was satisfied with the NT housing program it has provided $550 million funding for.
The government did not reply directly, but it said the housing agreement had six months to run and it would negotiate another after that to help close the gap.
With temperatures expected to keep getting hotter in the Northern Territory, Ms Brown said she was begging for relief.
"It's time for Aboriginal people to be living in good houses like everyone else. The way we live is not right," she said.
"We need good housing down here where no heat can come through the roof and the doors. We just want houses with aircons."
