Hunter Community Alliance held the forum to seek commitments on housing/homelessness and climate change, which were identified as key issues from community feedback sought over a six month period. The forum heard from experts, services and residents with personal experiences, before candidates were asked to commit to 10 policies.

One of the guest speakers was Karl Mallon, director of XDI, which provides climate change risk analysis to governments and institutions. He said research showed one in five children currently under 18 will be hospitalised in their lifetime with heat stress.

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In terms of coastal inundation, Dr Mallon used an analogy to describe where Lake Macquarie was positioned.

"In a way, we're a train speeding towards a brick wall, and at the moment we are continuing to accelerate, and if I can say that Lake Macquarie is in the front carriage, I think I can say that very confidently," he said.

Dr Mallon showed data that said the number of "high risk properties" in Lake Macquarie due to climate change was set to rise from 2254 last year to 10,803 by 2070.

On the housing front, Nova for Women and Children's Kelly Hansen said she had heard stories of local women sleeping in cars and staying with violent partners to keep a roof over their heads.

"The most scariest one is women taking drugs to keep themselves alert at night to prevent rape and or being beaten when they're living on the streets," Ms Hansen said.

The policies included in principle support for a safe car sleeping zone and resources to identify a suitable property on the west side of the Lake, push council to develop a 5-15 per cent affordable housing benchmark in new infill zones, take steps to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by December 2035, commit resources to equip the city for more frequent and intense heat waves and develop plans to mitigate rising sea level impacts.

Liberal candidate councillor Jason Pauling was not in attendance. Labor mayor Kay Fraser and Independent candidate Rosmairi Dawson agreed to all 10 policies either fully or in principle, but Lake Mac Independents candidate councillor Luke Cubis was listed as a no to all.

He said he couldn't give a concrete commitment due to the specifics in the questions and potential conflicts of interest. He also said council was already addressing some of these issues.

"There can at times be a difficulty in supporting a hard line stance towards a specific policy item because you find yourself with a conflict of interest when it comes to committees and council meetings," he said. "In broad terms I'm supportive of many of these, particularly the homelessness ones."

Hunter Homeless Connect coordinator Nissa Phillips, who co-chaired the meeting, said the alliance had consulted with experts and council to find out what was possible for council to commit to.

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