Vulnerable homeowners face a battle to find food and someplace dry to sleep when flood waters decline and short-lived shelters shut.

Nearly 800 people have sought refuge in NSW evacuation centres however their status as pop-up homes for some will stop to exist after the effect of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred passes.

Kim Kennedy, Vinnies' local real estate and homelessness manager for northeast NSW, has actually been on the front lines supporting individuals sleeping rough in flooded zones.

Her task was made harder on Monday due to harm to Fred's Place, the Tweed Heads drop-in centre where she is based, with constant rains inundating the area.

On any provided day, the centre serves about 130 hot meals to those in requirement however showers and laundry facilities run out commission until the flood damage is repaired.

"It has actually been a horrendous time for the homeless neighborhood," Ms Kennedy told AAP.

"It has been really difficult trying to get them any kind of shelter."

She stated the homeless were searching for any dry places they might sleep throughout a northern NSW area currently handling an alarming scarcity of inexpensive real estate.

"We have actually been assisting a whole family oversleeping their automobile," Ms Kennedy said.

"Seeing them in this horrendous weather condition is truly awful."

The Byron Shire city government location, south of Tweed Heads, had the most rough sleepers of any council area in the state, according to a 2024 government street count.

"We definitely do have a housing problem in the Northern Rivers and we need services," Ms Kennedy stated.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said evacuation centres set up in schools, universities, gyms and clubs could not act as a long-lasting fix to entrenched real estate issues in the region.

"I am fully aware of the significant difficulties for real estate in the Northern Rivers, but evacuation centres are not long-term services ... we don't have the resources, the staffing, the time, the allowance," he said.

The centres would close in all areas once regional emergency orders were raised, Mr Minns added.

"So I wish to apologise beforehand however we have to draw a really clear and understood line."

More than 10,000 individuals were under emergency cautions in NSW on Monday early morning, while 1800 people were isolated by floodwaters.

About 10,000 homes and businesses were still not linked to power as heavy rain continued to fall in lots of areas.

Major flood warnings were still in place for parts of the and Richmond rivers, while clean-up operations were under way somewhere else.

In Pottsville, in between Tweed Heads and Byron Bay, a whale carcass was among the debris that cleaned up after huge swells damaged the shoreline for days.

Residents from 17 NSW city government areas who had lost earnings due to the storm would be eligible for federal catastrophe relief funds for as much as 13 weeks, it was revealed on Monday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the financial support would be backed by psychological health services for impacted areas.

"We've got your back, that's my message to neighborhoods here," he said from Lismore on Monday.

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