Lack of housing in remote NT community Borroloola forcing families off country

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The housing crisis is front of mind for many people across Australia but in the remote Northern Territory community of Borroloola the problem is having disastrous consequences. Indigenous families there are being forced to choose between unsafe or overcrowded homes or moving out of the community off country and away from family and cultural knowledge.

Transcript

00:00There's no place like home, but Darcy's place, Boralula, has no home for him.

00:10I am worried, you know, because this is where we live and when we go out there we're nothing.

00:16We feel that we want to come back here, but there's in the back of the mind that there's

00:23a house problem back there, you know, all the time.

00:26Darcy moved back to the Gulf community, in part to share his cultural knowledge on country

00:32with his kids.

00:33But in his mum's two bedroom flat, the threat of overcrowding hangs heavy, separating the

00:39family.

00:40That's why my other three kids don't want to come this way because, you know, they don't

00:44know where to stay.

00:45I tried putting in for a house, but yeah, not go.

00:49He's one of many struggling with housing.

00:52More than half of the homes in the Gulf region are overcrowded.

00:57It's just a challenge that is going to take a lot more time, money and people to be able

01:02to come out here and actually facilitate it because we're so far away from everything here.

01:08The government says there are no further builds planned in the community, past the lot of houses

01:14constructed three years ago.

01:16If you wanted to fix it really quickly, I'd bring the army in.

01:21I would.

01:23Here in Borrolula, housing's come a long way in the last decade, but residents say that

01:29progress has been slow and many still live in overcrowded situations.

01:34Some say the overcrowding is so bad, residents have moved to other cities and communities

01:40in order to find safe housing.

01:42The last couple of years, like, that's why not much elder here, like, and a lot of middle-aged

01:51young, they all moved out to other communities and go to Darwin so their kids can have a good

01:56future.

01:57They shouldn't have to move away, you know, there should be more houses of young so people

02:03can stand out in community.

02:05A cry for help from a community cracking.

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