Residents in a flood-affected north Queensland community say they're being forced to leave the town they love due to a worsening housing crisis. Hundreds of properties were impacted when the record-breaking floods hit Ingham four months ago compounding an already dire rental shortage.
00:00Packing up what's left of her prized possessions, Karen Thomas is reluctantly leaving her beloved
00:09North Queensland community.
00:11This place has been sold, so I'm going to live with my grandchildren in a little room
00:18until I can hopefully come back to England.
00:21The 63-year-old lost priceless memories in February's devastating flood emergency, including
00:28photos of her daughter who died last year.
00:31All my baby photos, all my photos I lost, and I opened the box up and they were all destroyed, so I had to take them.
00:41Since then she hasn't been able to find secure, affordable housing.
00:45If there's a place for rent, it's gone in five seconds.
00:49More than 200 homes in Ingham were severely damaged in the flood event, exacerbating an already dire rental market.
00:57We had a housing crisis before the flood, and since the flood it's just been really incredibly challenging for a lot of our community to find suitable accommodation.
01:10With labour shortages delaying repairs, it's forcing some to take drastic action.
01:15We're seeing really significant overcrowding issues, lots of couch surfing, and then some people who have said,
01:22we just can't cope with another natural disaster and relocating out of the district.
01:26It's very embarrassing as a real estate agent when you can't place a good tenant in a house.
01:32Ms Thomas hopes she can return to her tight-knit community when more homes come back online.
01:48It's one of the beautiful properties time groups.
01:54I've never seen anything about Thermalt uhhh Duran.
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