Sunshine Coast rental crisis: Family faces being homeless within weeks

A wheelchair-bound mother and her elderly, cancer-ridden father could be homeless within weeks after being handed a rental eviction notice from their Sunshine Coast landlord.

A wheelchair-bound mother and her elderly, cancer-ridden father could be homeless within weeks after being handed an eviction notice from their Sippy Downs rental.

Natasha Parsons and her family have fallen victim of the current rental crisis on the Sunshine Coast and are desperate for alternative living arrangements.

Mrs Parsons, 40, was confined to a wheelchair following a car crash on the Sunshine Motorway in 2008 where her vehicle clipped the concrete verge of a median strip, flipped and landed in a ditch.

The crash left the mother-of-two paralysed while her father Brian, 81, is sick with prostate cancer.

A Sunshine Coast family could be homeless within weeks after falling victim to the rental crisis. Natasha Parsons and her family Jason, Brian and Lynda Parsons have received an eviction notice and have nowhere to go. Picture: Patrick Woods.

She said they have nowhere to go.

“We’ve tried everywhere, put in applications everywhere,” Mrs Parsons said.

“Dad does his treatment here and we can’t leave the Coast, my daughters study here. We don’t know what to do.

“Basically, they’re trying to kick someone in a wheelchair out and an 80-year-old cancer patient out too.”

Mrs Parsons said the family rents through Ray White Sippy Downs who she said had not shown compassion towards their situation.

She said they had rented the four-bedroom, single-storey brick home for the past three years.

“We were given a notice to leave on January 1, they told us the owner was selling but that’s all,” she said.

Sunshine Coast mother Natasha Parsons ended up in a wheelchair following a car crash in 2008. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Ray White spokeswoman Alex Tilbury said the agency had done everything in its power to assist the Parsons family, however, she said the market was in a “dire way” with vacancy rates sitting at less than one per cent.

Ms Tilbury said the family were sent a notice to leave as the property had been sold and the new owners wished to move in.

She said the agency had communicated with the Parsons during the sale process and had given them two months’ notice.

“The rental property market is in a very dire way right now,” Ms Tilbury said.

“Many properties at our Sippy Downs business and elsewhere are letting sight unseen on the same day as they become available. The market is moving very fast.

“We are a family business, and of course we feel a deep compassion for all our clients. Naturally our hearts go out to anyone looking for a home.”

Ms Tilbury said the agency would continue to try to help the family find a new residence.

Mrs Parsons said she had contacted Tenants Queensland for advice and support but was yet to find a new place to live.