It was a couple of years ago that she got news that her mother was gravely ill in a hospital’s intensive care ward.

The Hume Region Homelessness Network co-ordinator did what others in the same situation would do; she quickly booked a flight and headed back to the place where she grew up.

She was eternally grateful she made the effort, as a week after arriving her mum died.

What should have been a busy time helping to make funeral arrangements ended up somewhat of a nightmare.

“I got sick and I ended up in hospital for three weeks,” Ms Armstrong said.

It wasn’t just a routine matter of changing her flight to another date and returning home.

Her medical condition meant authorities would not let her leave the country unless she flew business class.

“And so I had to find a business class flight back. I ran out of every bit of leave I had. I had a great employer, really supportive, and at least I had a job,” she said.

“If I hadn’t had a job I’d have been in diabolical trouble. But I was literally coming up to three months without any income.”

Ms Armstrong said she herself could have been at risk of losing that financial buffer that prevented her becoming homeless.

“And nothing could have prepared me that I would have got sick at the same time as my mum.”

Ms Armstrong related her own experience to highlight just how at risk people were to becoming homeless themselves.

That should, she said, make the wider community more aware of the issue in order to help tackle homelessness more effectively and with far greater compassion.

Ms Armstrong has a detailed knowledge of the realities of the problem through her role with the network, which provides resources to the 14 agencies supporting homeless people in towns right across the North East.

“Homelessness just happens and most people are not responsible for the circumstances they find themselves in,” she said.

“And they’re acutely embarrassed and distressed about that. They don’t know what to expect. They think they’re going to be judged in some way.”

Ms Armstrong said there should be no indignity or shame attached to homelessness “because it’s so easy to be affected in that way”.

“Young people in particular are not responsible for the breakdown in their parents’ relationship that renders them homeless.”

One of the major problems for homelessness agencies in the North East is that there is little, if any, crisis or emergency accommodation, a situation that is not shared across the border in the Albury region.

That extreme difficulty in being able to find somewhere when people literally have nowhere to sleep that night in turn makes it hard to provide support regarding the issues that led to them finding themselves in such a situation.

“If you’re living with three children in the back of a car it’s hard to work on issues that got you there,” Ms Armstrong said.

“In order to work effectively with people they need to feel stable and secure.”

Having no access to crisis accommodation could in turn make it extremely difficult to address such basics as how to get the children to school the following day.

“I was talking to Rural Housing and they had a family where they have two parents and seven children living in two tents down by the river because there was nowhere else they could find to house them.”

Hotels, motels and caravan parks in the Albury-Wodonga area used to be drawn on to handle this crisis accommodation shortage, but many now won’t get involved.

“One bad experience unfortunately colours it for everybody,” Ms Armstrong said.

“And that’s not to say that agencies don’t bust a gut to try to do the best they can and work with the clients to ensure they take care of the accommodation.

“But you’ve got to be in a stable and safe, secure place to be able to take a breath to really address the issues that brought you to that point, whether that be unemployment, or illness, or whatever it is.”

A way to make a better fist of coming up with solutions, she said, was for people to not just say “we need a diverse community” but to also accept this came in many guises if this was to truly work in a cohesive way for everyone.

“If they could see the face of homelessness they would be very, very surprised. If you got all the people that were clients and put them in the high street along with everybody else you wouldn’t be able to pick them out,” Ms Armstrong said.

“They don’t actually wear a great big sign and are not all covered in tatts and reeking of alcohol.

“It’s such a stereotype.”

But as Ms Armstrong pointed out, unless someone got into difficulty “you wouldn’t know we existed because you’d have no reason to”.

“We’re very mindful of ensuring that we do not judge people,” she said.

“We’re about how to get them out of it and into a place that is better for them.”

The community also had a vital role to play.

“If a member of someone’s family or someone they know is in this situation at least they can point them in the right direction.”