This report examines how Australia's care infrastructures, encompassing welfare, housing, food and community support systems are fraying and increasingly failing to meet the basic needs of those on low- or no- income. The report documents the labour-intensive and precarious work required to piece together fragmented supports amid a worsening cost-of-living crisis.

Drawing on two case studies from the NSW Northern Coalfields, this paper considers economic value, government regulation, public perceptions, and urban development consequences, linking underground materiality with aboveground urban outcomes.