Homes North transforms South Tamworth Motor Inn into first dedicated transitional housing

One-stop-shop transitional housing motel, South Tamworth Motor Inn, opened on Tuesday, and all nine available rooms will be full by Friday night.

As well as a full-time live in caretaker, and officers during work hours, staff from the NDIS will be at the motel a few days a week.

READ MORE:

The one-of-a-kind dynamic will work well, Homes North senior housing manager Nicholas Grimes said.

"It's a lot different when people are going to be interacting with staff who understand, rather than just the standard motel," he said.

It's "fortuitous" that the project Homes North has been working on has come to fruition just in time for the Tamworth Country Music Festival.

The 15 to 20 rooms offered by Homes North across the city during the year decreases to the new motel's nine while the festival rages on.

"Prior to having this motel, we relied on other motels around town to take people," he said.

"The problem was, come country music, they're all full."

But homelessness doesn't stop just because the festival starts, Mr Grimes said.

In fact, Homes North often sees an increase in homelessness during January.

It was part of the reason the organisation wanted to run its own motel - as well as the fact relying on private business isn't ideal.

"If we have our own motel, we can have offices with support services in it," he said.

"We certainly were going to make it work for January, because we knew this was coming."

Tamworth Regional Council gave the green light to transform the motel at 303 Goonoo Goonoo Road into a transitional home in September.

There's a limit on the nights a person can stay at the motel, but it's not always enough, Mr Grimes said.

"The number of people that leave temporary accommodation, after entering, without a stable housing solution is very few," he said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: