‘My family-of-seven was forced to live in a tent thanks to the rental crisis'

A NSW mum was forced to live in a tent with her five children after they were left homeless by the worsening rental crisis.

Josephine Agostino

3 min read

December 12, 2022 - 3:03PM

Lifestyle

Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News.

Mum-of-seven, Patricia, never imagined that her family could become homeless.

Having rented the same home in the NSW town of Cobargo for four years with partner, Nick, and their youngest five children, Zac, 14, Ben, 12, Phoenix, 8, Sebastian, 3 and Patrick, 16 months, stability was the 37-year-old’s number one priority.

But in August, Patricia received a 90-day eviction notice from her landlord as a result of repairs needing to be made to the property.

Patricia made every attempt to leave the four-bedroom house well before that, spending nine months applying for “hundreds of rentals” in multiple regions of NSW costing up to $600 per week without success.

“It got depressing living in a tent and we felt trapped.” Photo: Supplied to Kidspot

“It felt really shitty having to live in a tent with 5 kids”

Their luck didn’t improve in the 90 days, either through private rentals or government housing, for which they had been put on a priority list.

“It felt really shitty,” Patricia admits to Kidspot.

Desperate, Patricia and Nick had no choice but to buy a secondhand tent and the bare basic camping equipment so they could provide shelter and food for their children.

"When it rained, we would be stuck inside. The older kids had no space to get away from their younger siblings.” Source:TikTok

“You’d lay awake waiting for the tent to break or parts to blow off”

With nowhere else to go, the family-of-seven relocated an hour away to Eden on the NSW coast, where they spent an entire month in the backyard of Patricia’s mother’s rental, as there was no room in the small two-bedroom unit.

Moved on by the landlord, Patricia then moved her family to a local caravan park, where they endured wet, windy and chilly conditions for 28 days in their two-room tent.

“It got depressing and we felt trapped,” she says about the campsite, which cost nearly $200 per week and was a 3-hour round trip work commute for her partner every day.

“Sleeping in the wind was horrible. You’d lay awake waiting for the tent to break or parts to blow off. Then when it rained, we would be stuck inside. The older kids had no space to get away from their younger siblings.”

Zac, Ben and Phoenix also had to leave the only school they’d known to re-enrol in one in Eden, which they would have to leave again just weeks later.

"We were very excited and the kids were so happy. It feels good to finally have everything put in its place.” Source: TikTok

“I felt like I’d just let my kids down”

The stressful ordeal was incredibly difficult for Patricia, who already suffered from depression and anxiety.

“There were some days where it was just too hard to get up and do things,” she says.

“I felt like I’d just let them all down. I’d go over to the showers and just cry. I never thought this would happen to us.”

Just a couple days before Patricia and Nick would have to completely pack up their site, only to return the following day (due to the park’s maximum 28-day stay policy), their family were given a lifeline.

Last month, the family moved into a four-bedroom home secured through community housing in the NSW Snowy Mountains.

While they would have to start from scratch and move jobs and schools yet again, Patricia looked at it optimistically as the best solution for her homeless family.

“We had hoped to stay on the coast, but this was the only house available,” she says.

“It was a huge relief. We were very excited and the kids were so happy. It feels good to finally have everything put in its place.”

Patricia has created a GoFundMe campaign to assist her family.