Help Rebuild the North Family Home

Hi, I’m Roz, Joel’s Mum and I am putting this GFM together to help my little family get their feet back of dry land after the flood. They will use the funds raised here to help rebuild and refurnish their 2 uninsured homes in Lismore and pay for living expenses in the meantime. 

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Joel and Anita Have spent 12 years building a treehouse dream down by the Wilson river in North Lismore.

Their hand crafted home has held many memories: from the humble beginnings as Uni students hand making their first home for the future, a healing sanctuary for Joel to recover from brain surgery in 2019 to a humble and safe home birth cocoon for their son Heath in 2019 … renovating a forgotten weatherboard house into a warm home was no small feat.

“We built everything with the 1974 flood in mind, we have flood hooks in our cieling for our bed and lounge, we built a high deck, a loft bedroom in the roof” says Joel… on Sunday last week Joel, Anita and Heath spent the entire day doing all of their flood preparations, every piece of furniture was raised to well above the 1974 flood levels. Anita and Heath left the house in the dark of night over floodwaters. Joel stayed up in the loft bedroom. As the waters rose well beyond anything expected, Joel became isolated and alone on the roof of the house. Heart racing as he watched all of the preparations flood with the muddy brown water of the Wilson river. It was three days before Joel was reunited with the family, and by that point every worldly possession and the humble weatherboard home was destroyed.

It is with heavy soggy hearts that the cleanup begins and the North family are now experiencing the day to day reality of homelessness. “Just trying to figure out Where to go for Heaths midday nap, what to make for dinner, which house to stay out, trying to figure out where to live for a short or medium or long time, it is all a spin and there is so much fear and trauma that it’s fogging all of the decision-making” says Anita.

The family have made the heart wrenching decision not to return to their beautiful home to live. Trying to find out where to relocate, while rebuilding their uninsured home (and investment property) and to replace every worldly possession will undoubtedly take resources that they do not have. Any donations that you may spare could help.

Thank you for reading and sharing this experience.