Temporary emergency boarding helps family with no place to go

My nine-year-old daughter Hannah, our cat Dottie and I were living out of our car for 3 months after not being able to secure affordable pet-friendly housing.
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My nine-year-old daughter Hannah, our cat Dottie and I were living out of our car for 3 months after not being able to secure affordable pet-friendly housing.

I reached out to St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland seeking accommodation support to find long term accommodation for us. Our barrier to finding a place to live had not only been financial but also that we have a cat.

During the months of instability living in our car, Dottie was one of the only things that helped Hannah through this period. We were actively applying for rentals and moving about sleeping in our car. Hannah was not attending school during this time.

Fortunately, a vacancy come up a couple of days after we reached out to St Vincent de Paul Society; however, it was in a unit head leased from a real estate and there are strictly no pets allowed. St Vincent de Paul Society offered us the unit and then set about trying to source somewhere for our cat Dottie to go, which was not an easy or affordable thing to do.
Then we heard back from the Animal Welfare League of Queensland and they placed Dottie in a foster carer’s home as part of their Emergency Boarding Program. This alleviated the stress for me however Hannah suffered the most with not having Dottie during this time. She was extremely distressed about being separated from her beloved cat, so Dottie’s amazing foster carer kindly sent us lots of lovely updates and photos.

Without the wonderful support provided by AWLQ, we would not have been able to accept the accommodation offered.
In the meantime, we finally secured long term accommodation with a community housing provider in partnership with the Department of Housing and Public Works who has a newly built pet-friendly block of units. We can’t wait to move and have Dottie back with us, where she belongs.

Tina, QLD
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