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Resilient Lismore: Rebuilding homes, restoring wellbeing and enhancing resilience through trust-based community-led recovery
Disaster recovery systems often frame housing repair as a technical task, separate from psychosocial recovery. This presentation challenges that mindset, demonstrating that safe, dignified homes—delivered through trust-based, relational practice—are a foundational resilience and wellbeing intervention.
Drawing on three years of independent social impact evaluation of Resilient Lismore’s Repair to Return program in the Northern Rivers, this case study shows that participants experienced a statistically significant 8% increase in overall wellbeing, alongside reduced anxiety and stress, increased pride in home and community, stronger agency in recovery, and renewed hope for the future—outcomes that typically decline following disaster.
Crucially, these outcomes were not driven by physical repairs alone. The program is grounded in a care-centred, relational approach that prioritises trust, dignity and community agency. Local staff and volunteers work alongside households over time, navigating complex systems, listening to lived experience, and supporting people to make informed decisions about their own recovery. This approach is particularly critical for households experiencing compounding disadvantage, including people living alone, people with disability, uninsured residents, and those who have disengaged from formal recovery pathways.
Evaluation findings show strong correlations between housing quality and key predictors of wellbeing, including sense of control, community connection, and hope for the future. The presentation reframes housing repair as a mechanism through which trust is built, agency is restored, and broader psychosocial recovery is enabled.
This session offers practical insights into how relational delivery models, equity-driven triage, and cross-sector partnerships can transform housing repair from a transactional service into a platform for equitable resilience. Participants will leave with transferable lessons for embedding trust, care and dignity into disaster recovery and resilience practice.
Drawing on three years of independent social impact evaluation of Resilient Lismore’s Repair to Return program in the Northern Rivers, this case study shows that participants experienced a statistically significant 8% increase in overall wellbeing, alongside reduced anxiety and stress, increased pride in home and community, stronger agency in recovery, and renewed hope for the future—outcomes that typically decline following disaster.
Crucially, these outcomes were not driven by physical repairs alone. The program is grounded in a care-centred, relational approach that prioritises trust, dignity and community agency. Local staff and volunteers work alongside households over time, navigating complex systems, listening to lived experience, and supporting people to make informed decisions about their own recovery. This approach is particularly critical for households experiencing compounding disadvantage, including people living alone, people with disability, uninsured residents, and those who have disengaged from formal recovery pathways.
Evaluation findings show strong correlations between housing quality and key predictors of wellbeing, including sense of control, community connection, and hope for the future. The presentation reframes housing repair as a mechanism through which trust is built, agency is restored, and broader psychosocial recovery is enabled.
This session offers practical insights into how relational delivery models, equity-driven triage, and cross-sector partnerships can transform housing repair from a transactional service into a platform for equitable resilience. Participants will leave with transferable lessons for embedding trust, care and dignity into disaster recovery and resilience practice.
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