A single mother and her teenage son are wondering where to go next after finding themselves homeless after escaping domestic violence and their 28-day homelessness assistance period expiring.
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Mary Smith (*not her real name) asked to remain anonymous for the sake of her son and was staying with a friend when she spoke to the Central Western Daily.
However, that solution was only temporary and she said she doesn't know where to go next.
"I left a domestic violence relationship 12 months ago and was sort of just staying with my dad for the last 12 months helping care for my niece while her mum was incarcerated," Ms Smith said.
"After her mum got my niece back things sort of heated up and we just had a bit of a family falling out and that's how I ended up where I am.
"Now we're at the stage where the only place my son and I have got to go is here," she said although her friend cannot put her up for long.
"My other option is to re-enter the domestic violence relationship again, which I will not put my son back through, nor myself."
Ms Smith said she could not go to a women's refuge because of the age of her son.
"Me and my son are pretty much just kicked to the gutter and that's how we feel, like we are just rejects," she said.
"My main issue is, what do any single parents, or any parent with kids that can't be accepted into refuges, where do we go after this? Who is out there to help, what organisations can help? There is literally none around and I've done all my research to find it and there's no one else that can help and it's not right."
She said moving out of Orange also wasn't an option because her son is settled here with school and has a friendship network that took effort to establish and she did not want to uproot him and throw his life further into disarray after he has already been through so much.
Me and my son are pretty much just kicked to the gutter and that's how we feel, like we are just rejects.
- Joy Smith*
"He's happy at the school at the moment," she said.
"He doesn't want to go, we've spoken about it. It's my decision but it's his too."
She said they became homeless on July 4 this year and have been in and out of motels since then until Monday when Housing Plus and the Department of Communities and Justice-Housing informed her they were no longer able to assist her with housing or with temporary accommodation.
"I have used up my 28 days that are allocated for temporary accommodation or emergency accommodation," she said.
"Now my son and I are literally homeless. They can't help us any further."
She said a friend offered her a place to stay for a couple of nights.
"But other than that me and my son are stuck," Ms Smith said.
"We stayed in four motels, we stayed at the Royal Hotel, Kite Street Apartments, which I had to pay for out of my own money, we were at the Mid City Motor Inn. We also stayed at the Orange Motor Lodge.
"On the weekend we were forced to stay in a room with one king-size bed and that was with my ... son. I asked if they had a room that they could change, 'no'.
"We were sleeping intervals, my son went to sleep in the afternoon, he woke up at 2am and then I went to sleep at 2am up until I think 9am."
She said they then got up and spent the entire day at her friend's house but so they could both get a decent night's sleep, her son stayed at the friends' house while she slept in the motel room alone.
Ms Smith said her son also missed school on Monday because she needed help moving their luggage out of the motel room.
"It's just a nightmare, we're always just packing our stuff up and moving to the next motel and it's starting to drain all of us," she said.
"They can't say there's no houses, you drive around Orange and you can see the houses that are empty, they are boarded up, and they can stay boarded up for years at times."
She said one of those houses is in Kurim Avenue and has been boarded up for about two-and-a-half years.
"The private rentals is just not affordable for anyone like myself on Newstart, that is getting the minimum Centrelink payment and trying to afford anything like $350 a week, even your Newstart doesn't cover that for a fortnight."