For eight years Shane and Michelle and their six children rented a property on Mitchells Island, and its backyard was the territory of their dog, Gunna. "It was home," Michelle said.

In July last year they were given an eviction notice, the owner had died and the family was selling the property. They had 90 days to move out.

"We began looking for a home straight away," Michelle said. "We didn't think we would have any trouble finding another place to rent. We were wrong."

With no place to go, in October the family was forced to rent a motel room in Taree. More than $4000 in savings put aside for a car quickly disappeared.

"We were paying up to $720 a week for one room, but after a while we got them down to $600 a week," Shane said. "Because we had kids they let us stay longer, but it was a huge amount of money and it was so cramped."

The family decided to not access the Department of Family and Community Services Link2Home emergency accommodation.

"We just didn't want to put our children through that because you have to move (from a motel) every three days, and we wanted to give our children some sort of stability," Shane said.

With the loss of their home, and inability to secure a new home, came the trauma of needing to surrender their dog, Gunna, to the pound.

"That broke all the kids' hearts and our hearts," Michelle said. "It was just shit," Shane added.

Since October Shane and Michelle have submitted more than 100 rental applications.

"Every rental we went to inspect there were always a lot of people. So many people seem to be in this situation," Michelle said.

The constant rejection of their rental applications took its toll on their mental health, and the limitations and challenges of living in a motel room saw their 16-year-old daughter chose to leave their care to live with her boyfriend.

"It was too small, there was no privacy, she just couldn't understand why we couldn't get a home," Michelle said.

"We went through over 100 homes and in the end it made me feel like I didn't want to get out of bed any more. I nearly gave up. I had never felt like that in my life, so much rejection.

"The kids would ask, why can't we get a home? and I couldn't give them an answer. We don't know."

"I'm the husband and the father, the man who is supposed to be able to give them a home and I couldn't even do that," Shane added.

The experience has forced the couple to question everything, and they believe it is because they have six children, and that their income is sourced from Shane's Disability Pension and Michelle's from Newstart and Family Tax Benefit payments, that their application is viewed negatively by local real estate agents and contributes to the decision to not approve their application.

"We have an excellent rental record, are not blacklisted on TICA (Australian tenancy database) and can pay our rent. It's just a nightmare," Michelle said. "We have 15 years of good rental history," Shane added.

Samaritans Taree recently acted to help the family with access to a transitional home - it's old, it's small but Shane and Michelle are so thankful.

"We used every cent and once that ran out I started to panic. We have some family in town but because we have six children there is only so long that you can stay with them," Michelle said.

The family moved into the Samaritans home this week, it will be temporary accommodation while they continue their search for a suitable rental property.

"This place gives us some stability, which is a start," Shane said.

"In the last few days the kids have been a lot better, and as we have got some of our stuff out of storage they have been so excited," Michelle said.

"I never thought this could happen. We had a great life, we had everything ... we had to sell and give away so many things, we just lost everything," Michelle added.

"I can't believe how many people there are that don't have a home, or who can't get a home."

The issue of housing stress for vulnerable people is a high priority focus of the Samaritans and on April 29 it released its 2019 Rental Affordability Snapshot Report for the Great Lakes, Taree, Hunter and Central Coast regions.

Data for the report came from a snapshot of rental properties listed on March 23 on realestate.com.au and the Taree region was one of 10 in the spotlight. A total of 2835 private rental properties were surveyed to determine how many were affordable and appropriate for households on income support. A suitable property is one that takes up less than 30 per cent of a household's income and which had an appropriate amount of bedrooms.

Of all properties advertised in Taree on the snapshot weekend, only 7.1 per cent were deemed affordable and appropriate for households receiving any kind of income support.

With one per cent of the population waiting for social housing, and 10.8 per cent unemployed, this local government area has little to offer people on income support seeking affordable and appropriate private rentals, the report states.

"Available private rentals have been slowly decreasing over the past five years, and the percentage that are suitable for households on income support has reduced to zero for over half of the region. This means that housing is becoming further out of reach for those on the lowest incomes."

"Samaritans sees the direct impact on people's lives when they can't find secure and affordable accommodation. In Taree alone, there are 219 applications from people trying to access social housing. The people we support are being told there's a five to 10 year wait for placement.

"The Rental Affordability Snapshot demonstrates that the rental market continues to remain inaccessible for people receiving government support."

Samaritans community services manager, Michelle Stocks says "we know that people in our community care deeply about those who are experiencing hardship.

"These are people trying hard to avoid homelessness, but who are finding the system stacked against them," Ms Stocks said.

"Our vision is to work together as a community to break down the stigma of hardship. We are talking about your son's best friend; this is the mum you see at school pick-up or your retired neighbour from across the street. People facing hardship are people around you in your community that you see every day.

"We need all levels of government to commit to eliminating homelessness and making housing affordable and accessible to every Australian."

Did you know the Manning River Times is now offering breaking news alerts and a weekly email newsletter? Keep up-to-date with all the local news: SIGN UP HERE.