Byron Bay isn't Byron Bay anymore

(Sorry the photo wasn't taken by me because this won't upload any of my photo's I just took as my photos aren't big enough) but this photo captures the beautiful paradise I was born, raised and still live in, though it doesn't capture the struggling side of the Byron Shire that has been created over the years.

Yes, behind this beautiful paradise land is a side that people don't expect, until they move here. First I'll talk about the bad side, then the beautiful side.

This used to be a nice reasonably quiet place, reasonable prices for rent, petrol, food, bills, travelling, even communicating with one another, until it got advertised way too much and it lost it's purity, mostly from rich people from cities and overseas, and because it's so popular now everything here is way too expensive.

The food: it's great for vegans and fitness as there is so many places with healthy food, and a big favourite from the locals is the açai bowl, the down side though is the prices for food here is ridiculously expensive, growing up we all noticed how the chips at fish and chips stores were getting less chips but more expensive.

Houses for sale and renting: a fair few years ago, lets say 5-10 years ago the rental was a decent sized room for around $120-200 per week in a shared house, now for the same room in an even older shared house it's around $200-350 per week. A whole 3-4 bedroom house used to be $400-600 per week, now it's $550-800 per week. To by a 3-4 bedroom house back then was around $700-000, now it's over a million dollars.

As you can see, the pricing has gotten way out of hand for us locals, that the only people who can afford places here are rich people from the cities. True locals who have lived here for over 20 years are getting kicked out of houses and can't get a place to live anymore because rich city folk have bought all the houses and taken all the rentals. Most locals usually like to wait for the rental house investigations before agreeing to live in it as most locals are very spiritual and want to feel the energy for the house they want to move into before moving into it, yet the rich city folks don't wait for an investigation, and they get it straight away by offering more money for rent.

I'm 23 and still living at my parents house because so many people don't want to rent to a young woman with a dog, yet I also see families unable to get a rental too and they need it more than me, it makes me not want to try to apply to rentals as there are people who need them like families who are being kicked out and becoming homeless as they couldn't get any rentals and they spend hours everyday sending in applications and calling up real estate etc, and they still never get it.

There are too many rules to live by when people put a place up for rent around here like no pets, must be vegan/vegetarian, female preferred, must be clean, no smoking, no drugs, no noise, must be sociable with other housemates, no friends over etc, way too many ridiculous rules that a lot of people can't/won't by.

Most locals don't want to leave this area because it's their home, it's where everything is for them, a lot of people end up settling for places that are around an hour or 2 away that has affordable rent. My first "move out of home" was when I was 20, I lived in my van until I got annoyed at being asked to move all the time and there wasn't many places to camp with a dog, so the only place I could go next was to camp in the bush next to the beach with some friends at beach about 10 minutes away from Byron Bay town, but rich stuck up city folks always called the cops on my friends and I without actually talking to us, but the police kept coming back to tell us to move on, though the police actually thought this was a great idea for us to live in nature, but as an order by their chief of police they had to tell us to move on almost every month from people complaining who weren't anywhere near us, we weren't making any mess or noise, the only people who came up and complained to our face where the horse riders who were also illegally riding their horses down the bush near us a few days a week.

As you've read there are lot of complainers around the area both good and bad reasons, people complaining about not enough reasonable priced rentals, not enough rentals for everyone, rentals having strict rules so certain people can't live there, so then all these people become homeless, then the people who have a house to live in complain about the homeless people living in the bush, then a few months ago some homeless people had a little protest and camped in town which then got them moved by the police, so all these people have no where to live but the bush that we all get kicked out of.

Working: as a young woman I can say how difficult it is to get a job around here, employers want to hire young people with years of experience, yet how are we supposed to get years of experience if no one will hire us? If we go do a course to work in a certain job title, we usually don't end up getting a job in that area of job we studied for. If anyone can manage to get a job around here, we gotta hang onto as long as we can as it is so hard to get another job, the only people who get jobs easy here are the ones who have plenty experience or they know the people who run a business. It's gotten to a point where so many are going for the Disability Pension because they can't find a job and it's pushing away the people who actually have disabilities and now unable to get it because so many people have tricked their way around to getting the DP, like once they got the DP they then manage to get a job, and the ones with real disabilities are poor and homeless because they couldn't get a job and the DP.

The loss of housing, causing loss of jobs, as you need to live in a house to have a job, and you need a job to live in a house, causing many people around here to be homeless and broke.

A lot of locals are blaming the celebrities that moved here from being tired of Los Angels like Zac Efron and Chris Hemsworth (even though Chris is from Australia he's still a big movie star who moved to Byron Bay from Hollywood), yes it has brought in a fair few more people to this area, there are now a few shows and movies being filmed here since 2-3 years ago, but that's not the only reason this place is packed full of rich people now, this place has been advertised for over 20 years through a few shows and moves.

Ok let's get over the bad side of this area and lets talk about the beauty of this land, on Bundjalung country, on the east coast of Australia has the most beautiful energy and space I've ever been on, I always feel so lucky and blessed to be born and raised in this area, every time I go for a swim in nature, whether it's at the beach, river, creek or waterfall, it makes me so grateful to be living in paradise, the nature trail walks give me the same feeling, so peaceful, calm, nurturing, loving, healing energy.

There's spiritual people everywhere, always ready to talk about something deep and meaningful, even the ones who don't look hippy at all are also so wise, no judgements from these beautiful souls who are truely from this land, not only do we get rich stuck up city folk moving here, we get a lot of hippies from all over the country and the world who've had a calling to this place to connect with likeminded people. So many people here are so careless with judgements and with what people do "let them do their thing" and are so caring of each other, which creates such a free spirited, healing, loving atmosphere.

There's also so many healing workshops around here too, about a hundred yoga classes, cacao ceremonies, womens circles, the famous drum circles at Top Park/Main Beach in Byron Bay town, ecstatic and 5 elements dance, and many other creative workshops, gathering and classes.

This is a place that was made for free spirited souls, but sadly, so many rich people coming in and taking over local housing and businesses has changed all of that.

Please, if you are thinking of moving to or around Byron Bay, please be mindful of what it can do to us true locals or what you can do to help us.

Thanks for reading, much love x.