Reach out for Support
Natural disasters, cleaning up and recovery can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Don’t hesitate – support is available to help you look after your own and your loved ones’ wellbeing.
Call Service NSW on 13 77 88 to be connected to services and support, including emergency accommodation, financial assistance, insurance advice or help replacing lost identification.
Mental health support is available. Call the 24-hour NSW Mental Health Line on 1800 011 511 or find mental health services in your area.
All flood-impacted households and businesses will receive clean-up assistance – including the removal of debris, mud and green waste – regardless of insurance status. Discover who can help you clean up and how to stay safe during clean up.
The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) guide Your next steps toward recovery from floods and storms (PDF, 10.6MB) offers practical tips and advice to returning home after a flood.
As soon as it is safe to do so take photos of the damage to your home or premises. The contents of your home – furniture, clothes, appliances and so on – may be covered by home contents insurance if you have a policy. Read emergency insurance and legal support for more information.
Tenants should notify their landlord or managing agent of damage to the property, who should attend to these repairs as soon as possible. Read tenants and landlords advice in floods for more information.
Read more about replacing identification and personal documents in an emergency.
Brand new clothes for people affected by the Queensland floods
Threadtogether.org is supporting fellow Australians in this time of great hardship with urgent deliveries of brand new clothing to men, women and children who have lost everything.
Australian Government flood support
You can access Australian Government support if you have been impacted by the recent flooding and severe weather.
- The Australian Government has activated support for communities impacted by the current flooding event in Queensland and NSW. The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment is a one-off payment available to those who have been significantly affected by a major disaster.
- Recovery Connect provides information on flood services and support such as food and essential services, health services and evacuation and recovery centres based on your location. Recovery Connect also provides information on how to prepare for a flood and what to do during flooding.
- Services Australia provides ongoing support to those who have been impacted by natural disasters by providing access to services such as financial help, living arrangements, family and domestic violence, social worker support and mental health help. Lump sum payments and short-term allowances have been made available to those who have been impacted by the recent Queensland and NSW flooding.
For a full list of your state or territory government’s support programs, visit the Australian Government website
If you need emergency or temporary accommodation
Accommodation is available to people affected by floods. $350 million has been allocated by the NSW Government for temporary modular housing, to be installed across hard-hit regions of NSW.
You can access this by visiting a flood recovery and evacuation centre or by calling Service NSW on 13 77 88.
More than a thousand flood-affected people have been accommodated in hotels and motels. The focus now is to help people to move out of emergency accommodation and find a more permanent place to call home.
If you need short-term accommodation, you can now apply for the flood recovery rental support payment, and also enquire about the following services:
- temporary housing pods to stay on property while rebuilding
- mobile motor homes
- temporary housing sites
- housing brokerage service to help connect people with private rental homes through Red Cross.
If your home is uninhabitable you can now apply for the flood recovery rental support payment which includes up to 16 weeks’ rental support in temporary accommodation, Worth up to $18,000 the payment is scalable based on the number of people per household, including children.
Visit emergency financial support for people for more information.
The NSW Department of Planning and Environment also has further information on temporary accommodation on their Disaster recovery pages.