Geelong woman faces homelessness battle over tiny home

A domestic violence survivor who pulled herself out of homelessness by building a tiny home on a friend’s property faces being kicked out on the street by council red tape.   

Teena Keys, from Geelong, south-west of Melbourne, was left homeless after losing her business during the pandemic and fleeing an abusive relationship. 

In a damning indictment of Australia’s deepening housing crisis, she was rejected from more than 60 rentals and was forced to spend three years couch surfing and sleeping in her car while trying to rebuild her housekeeping business. 

But her fortunes turned around in December last year when she built a tiny off-grid home on a friend’s 100-acre property in the rural Victorian town of Anakie.

‘I just think this is a solution to a big problem here in Victoria. There are so many people on the streets, so many people without housing,’ Ms Keys told Sunrise. 

‘There are so many ageing farmers who can’t do the work they used to do. The solution here is to put some homes on these properties so people have somewhere to live.’

However, Ms Keys now faces being turfed out after being given a deadline of 60 days to shell out thousands of dollars she doesn’t have for a retrospective building permit.

‘The permit is just the beginning,’ she told the program. 

‘Then you have to have everything up to code, which means getting in trades and services that I just can’t afford. 

‘I am not the only person in this situation. A lot of Australians are in this boat. 

‘I have worked my whole life. I don’t get Centrelink or anything. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. It is just— you just keep getting kicked to the curb.’

Ms Keys said she had nowhere else permanent to go if the council forced her out.

‘I will probably couch surf again for a few more years because I don’t have a solution after this,’ she added.

A GoFundMe page, set up by a friend to raise money to allow Ms Keys to keep her home, has so far raised $300.    

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‘Teena left a violent marriage with a police escort in 2019 moved back to her home town Geelong only for Covid to hit and destroy her growing housekeeping business,’ the fundraising page read.

It revealed that Ms Keys was forced to couch surf because she was seen as a ‘high-risk renter – single woman, self-employed and her business diminishing’.

The housekeeper, who relies on food banks to eat, suffered two bouts of pneumonia and underwent surgery to remove a pre-cancerous growth during this stressful time. 

‘She never thought her life would take the turn it has with thousands of dollars and trades required to get her little cabin approved so after five years she could finally feel grounded,’ the GoFundMe page reads. 

‘She feels this hard slog is about to be pulled out from underneath her.’

Daily Mail Australia approached City of Greater Geelong council for comment.