Rethinking home: Ideas flow at housing conference

FROM hippie communes to tiny houses – a range of innovative solutions to the housing crisis were discussed during a conference at Southern Cross University in Lismore last week.

More than 250 people attended the Land, Sharing and the Law conference, which was held to coincide with the third anniversary of the 2022 floods that devastated the Northern Rivers region.

Speakers included former Byron Shire councillor Mark Swivel, from Barefoot Law, Greens MP for Ballina Tamara Smith and Tiny House Association president Rochelle Ryan.

Local councillors from across the region, government officials and people affected by the floods were also among the attendees.

“The whole idea of the conference was to do what universities are meant to do, which is to inspire discussion and debate and brainstorm ideas,” SCU dean of law and conference convenor Professor David Heilpern said.

“There was a general recognition that stories of the past provide lessons for the future.

“There’s hundreds of multiple occupancies, or communes, in this region that have been here since the Aquarius Festival in the 1970s that don’t exist anywhere else.”

Professor Heilpern said many people impacted by the floods expressed their trauma and frustration at the lack of action to solve the housing issue.

“Mark Swivel made the point that the community has been very patient with the state government with the perception of snails’ pace change in the post-flood era and here we are facing another one,” he said.

“It’s scary for people who are thinking about going through it all again.”