RESIDENTS uprooted by the New Lambton landslide say they are not banking on a "Christmas miracle", while feeling an enormous strain on their daily lives nearly a year and half after the ground moved beneath them.
For those families, like that of Caroline Garred, clarity on compensation and any degree of certainty about what to expect going forward "couldn't come soon enough".
City of Newcastle chief executive Jeremy Bath said this week he was "really confident" of an outcome by Christmas time this year.
At his meeting with the NSW Reconstruction Authority executives on Monday, three aspects of compensation for affected property owners were discussed, he said.
The first was a financial package to compensate residents for their land, the second was financial compensation from the state and federal governments for the demolition of the properties, and the third element was compensation for the works required to stabilise the land.
Mr Bath said the discussions were confidential, but that they were continuing in a "positive, collaborative way".
Mrs Garred said it was definitely a matter of wait and see, because the council did not control federal government timelines.
"This was made very clear to us this year," Mrs Garred said.
"So, I would consider it a 'Christmas miracle'. I think it's unwise to publicly state an assumed timeframe because it is dangling a carrot to a very emotionally and mentally fatigued group of people."
So far the authority was paying people's temporary rents until July 2027. Meanwhile, families are continuing to get on with their lives under increasing pressure.
"The mental, emotional and financial toll this has had on our family is enormous," Mrs Garred said.
"The instability of the economy right now means that every week we wait, the goal posts change due to rising mortgage rates. The stress of the unknowns are definitely taking their toll."
Living in a small rental was also affecting their daily lives on multiple levels, she said.
"I used to have a closed office, now it's open and noisy at home." Mrs Garred said.
"Our kids are young and are very active and need to run out energy before and after school. You can't underestimate the value in having a backyard."
Leonie Morgan is also grappling with the impact of the changes on her life and that of her husband and four children, one of who is an adult living with level three Autism Spectrum Disorder.
He had gone from requiring some structure and routine in his life, to now requiring everything in his life to be scheduled, written down in a red book a week in advance, in an effort to cope with the level, and frequency, of change.
Any change to that schedule was a big deal for him and it seemed as if the whole ordeal had "put him back years", Ms Morgan said.
Ms Morgan said she hadn't heard anything about Mr Bath's meeting with the reconstruction authority, or proposed changes to the councils planning controls in the aftermath of the landslide.
"I haven't heard anything about it but I have stepped back from it as far as possible, because it's really affecting my mental health and everyone around me, I think," Ms Morgan said.
"I've ended up with a lot of problems relating to the fact that, I just couldn't eat to begin with, at all. I ended up, and still technically have, malnutrition from not being able to eat properly."
Ms Morgan said she spent a month in hospital trying to stabilise her bloods, after living for six weeks in a hotel soon where there was no option to cook fresh food.
The family was moved from one room to another during that time, sometimes after just one or two nights, because the goal posts kept shifting as to how long they would be out of home, she said.
"Nobody would tell us what was going on," she said.
And so far, her rent had been paid up to November but a cloud of uncertainty hung over the family's heads as to what would be next.
"The worst thing in terms of the repercussions that we're seeing is the uncertainty," Ms Morgan said.
The stress on her son had led to many more psychiatric visits and therapy, after he tried to go home one night from Hamilton in his pyjamas.
He was still asking to go back and get his things, Ms Morgan said.
"What he doesn't understand is that a lot of it is broken, or still in storage," Ms Morgan said.
They had lost pets, found stored items destroyed by mould, and it was continuing to cost $1000 per month to store other things - and she had thought there would be news by November.
"I think it's a bit wrong to dump it on everybody just before Christmas," Ms Morgan said.
"I mean its nice, that we might know what's going on before Christmas, but it's also, if it's not what you wanted ... it's a weird time to do anything, just before Christmas."
