Adelaide mother and her severely disabled son facing homelessness
An Adelaide mother and her severely disabled son are facing homelessness and says he wouldn't survive sleeping rough. She says she was told to "manifest a house" by an SA Housing Trust worker, and with two months until her lease expires, she's running out of options.
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00:00Cassian lights up when it's story time.
00:04Yeah, you're already laughing because you know it's coming.
00:07The four-year-old has cerebral palsy and relies on multiple machines to live.
00:12His family has rented for the past eight years but the home isn't accessible and the NDIS
00:18doesn't modify private rentals easily.
00:21Cassian is going to grow and he's a boy and he's going to get very big.
00:25I then also had an accident, well two accidents actually, where I fell down the stairs carrying him.
00:31In January, Katie Fattel was placed on a waiting list for public housing.
00:36With their lease expiring in September, she was feeling desperate with homelessness looming.
00:42That's when her access worker emailed through information on how to manifest a home.
00:48I think it was about 17 links or 20 links to various different ways I can manifest a house.
00:55I can use spells and witchcraft and a lot of new agey kind of advice on how I can somehow
01:03will a house into existence.
01:06The government says the email is inappropriate and a performance review of the staff member
01:11is underway.
01:12That is not the type of response that I have seen ever before.
01:16It certainly isn't helpful for Katie.
01:20The family's case is now priority one and they're getting support from the state's
01:24exceptional needs unit.
01:27But they believe the urgency of their housing needs isn't getting through, with the prospect
01:31of homelessness meaning Cassian will have to go into hospital or worse.
01:36I'm sorry, but it's just like, he will actually die and people just don't, don't understand
01:44that it is not just, like I'm not just a sponge, I just want a safe place for him to
01:49live.
01:50The current issue for Katie is being addressed by the department and there's special attention
01:55that will be paid to that to make sure that this particularly vulnerable family is provided
02:01with housing outcome.
02:02But Katie and Cassian are keeping hope for the future.
02:06His internal world is just as rich and meaningful as what ours is and that's why I'm fighting
02:11so hard for him.
02:12A fight they hope will help the family find a stable home.