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.