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Eligibility
To get this payment you must meet all of the following:
- left your house due an extreme circumstance, such as fire, flood or community violence and it’s unreasonable for you to return to your home in the near future
- intend to establish or have established a new home
- be eligible for, or getting, an income support payment or ABSTUDY Living Allowance
- be in severe financial hardship
- be in Australia when the extreme circumstance happened and when you submit your claim.
- contact us or make a claim within 7 days of deciding that you can’t return to your home.
You can’t get this payment if any of the following apply:
- you were evicted from your home because you didn’t pay your mortgage or rent
- you haven’t experienced an extreme circumstance but chose to move homes
- you haven’t established or intend to establish a new home
- you brought about the extreme circumstances with the intent to claim
- you have already reached the maximum number of crisis payments payable for an extreme circumstance
- you got a disaster relief payment for the same extreme circumstance.
Examples of disaster relief payments are:
- Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment
- Disaster Recovery Allowance
- any other payment or disaster relief payment from your local, state or territory governments, or the Commonwealth.
If you can’t get this Crisis Payment, read about other crisis and special help you can get.
Evidence
We’ll ask you for evidence of the extreme circumstance that led you to claim, such as a police or fire report. We may contact them to confirm the details.
The evidence must include the following;
- date the extreme circumstance occurred
- address of the extreme circumstance
- what the extreme circumstance was.
We do not accept photos of property damage or news articles as evidence for your claim.
If the evidence you attach is not relevant or we cannot verify it, we will reject your claim.
Contact us
To get this payment you must contact us within 7 days of deciding that you can’t return to your home.
We consider you to have made contact if you do one of these to get a payment or concession card:
- begin a claim using your Centrelink online account
- call us on your regular payment line
- visit a service centre.
After contacting us, you must submit your claim within 14 days.