As pressure mounts on governments at all levels to address the plight of homeless people, a NSW-Victorian border family say they fight a daily battle just trying to keep their son alive.
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The couple moved out of their rental home of three years due to the owner taking the property off the rental market.
But now the struggle to find a new rental has Stephen Elkin and Melissa Campbell fearing they and their one-year-old toddler James might join the ranks of the 35,000 people in NSW deemed to be homeless in the latest ABS figures.
James was born with holes in his heart, and has been diagnosed with tracheobronchomalacia; he needs a 240-volt respirator machine that requires a 24-hour supply of electricity to survive.
"We've lived here for three years," Mr Elkin said, referring to their North Albury rental house. "We don't have any family here, we're both from Tasmania so don't have any contacts like that here.
"The people we have gotten to know here all have families of their own so they can't accommodate us even on a temporary basis. We've tried Beyond Housing, we've linked In with the hub, but there's only so much they're able to do.
"At one point we were talking about camping on the hospital grounds in case something goes wrong with James."
Ms Campbell said James was born with multiple ventricular septal defects which led to him undergoing an operation when he was 28 days old but there were complications after the surgery.
"They discovered he's got what they called tracheobronchomalacia which weakens the air passage," she said.
"This machine is supplied by Royal Melbourne Hospital, it was all looked after by Medicare so we didn't have to worry about that but it has to be plugged in so we need a reliable power supply.
"They said he'll need the respirator for the next two or three years but there's no guarantees and they're not sure what will happen.
"This machine is what is keeping him alive; if he's not connected to it, he could die, he can't breathe without it. He stopped breathing a couple of times before but thankfully it was while we were at the hospital.
"If it happened outside the hospital, away from immediate medical care, I hate to think what would happen."
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It is understood the family has found temporary accommodation at a caravan park while they await news from several Border agents.
Mission Australia's NSW director Nada Nasser has called for the federal and NSW governments to commit to the building of more social and affordable homes.
"Across NSW, cost-of-living pressures are increasing, rental affordability remains low and affordability for low-income households has worsened in Sydney and even more so in regional areas," Ms Nasser said.
"The severe shortage of social and affordable housing, a private rental market that is extremely unaffordable across metro and regional NSW and soaring cost of living are accelerating the housing and homelessness crisis."
