Rochester's recovery from last year's flood disaster is years away with many people still without adequate shelter and basic necessities.
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Homelessness, declining mental health and the onset of winter has created the perfect storm which has left some residents at breaking point.
In October 2022, the town of around 3000 people experienced its worst-ever flood when hundreds of properties were inundated after the Campaspe River broke its banks.
Eight months on and the town is still battling to recover both physically and mentally from the scars left by the disaster.
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Rochester Community House manager Amanda Logie said the town was many years away from being back to where it was pre-flood.
"(Recovery is) not even close," she said.
Ms Logie cited clinical psychologist Dr Rob Gordon who has been working in the field of disaster recovery since Ash Wednesday in 1983 to highlight the town's plight.
"Dr Rob Gordon said recovery takes seven years and we are only eight months in," she said.
"We have got a long way to go and even early on immediately after the flood event in October people were talking about we are moving into recovery in January.
"I just kept saying 'no we are not'."
Ms Logie said while the town's residents were still fighting to have basic needs, including housing and clothing, met the talks regarding recovery should wait.
An alarming thing Ms Logie said she noticed was the number of people accessing the community house for mental health support who have never needed the organisation before.
She said it showed how much the community is still suffering from the flood.
"As long as we are at a point where we are still providing basic warmth for people in our community, we are not at recovery," Ms Logie said.
"We are still responding to the people's needs and they just need stable (housing)."
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Ms Logie said with winter setting in and the cold weather and rain beginning to hit the region people needed to have access to suitable housing.
Although she said how to get to this solution was "the million-dollar question."
"What do we need? We need our people, our community to get back in their houses," she said.
"Insurance companies, some are being great, some are not being great. There are people without insurance that have the funds and the savings to be able to get themselves back into their houses.
"There are so many people that don't have insurance ... there are shortages on trades and materials and then you look at the weather there is a whole range of different reasons as to why people are not back in their houses."
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