Far North’s social housing wait time now two years, with 6000 people on the list
Children are sleeping in cars with their parents while waiting up to two years for a roof over their heads, a Cairns advocate says.
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Children are sleeping in cars with their parents while waiting up to two years for a roof over their heads, a Cairns advocate says.
They are among an estimated 6000 people in the Far North who are on the region’s social and crisis housing wait lists.
It comes after the Cairns Post reported on Wednesday domestic violence was the primary driver of homelessness in the region
According to Nicole Dye, manager of Women’s Shelter FNQ, the wait time for social housing has doubled over the past two years.
“We need 6000 accessible, affordable and immediately available houses across the accommodation spectrum – crisis, transition, social and permanent privates houses. We need them as soon as possible,” Ms Dye said.
“There has been a 29 per cent homelessness increase in regional Queensland in the past five years, but in that same period public housing tenancies in Cairns have barely changed.”
Ms Dye said a family’s two-year wait on the social housing register often meant two years of rough sleeping.
She said children in primary school were among those who have needed to use her organisation’s shelter services.
“The majority are couch surfing … sleeping in unsafe places, sleeping rough,” she said.
“We have had women and their children coming to our centre who have slept in their cars because they have nowhere else to go.
“There is a blockage at the crisis housing level. It used to be a three month tenancy period, but now there are no rental properties for people to move into, so people in crisis housing just can’t move on.”
Cairns Regional Council has previously concluded about 11,500 houses would be needed within the next decade to satisfy the region’s growing population.
Acting mayor Terry James said the revelation that mothers and their children were sleeping in their cars was totally unacceptable.
He said he was committed to expediting the council’s current review of its properties that could be used for social housing purposes. The review is currently due for completion in 2026.
“It’s council’s belief that having safe and permanent housing is a fundamental human right,” Mr James said.
“Councils are not the providers of social housing, but we are facilitators and enablers.
“We’ve got incentives now: anyone who does affordable housing, they won’t have infrastructure charges.
“Now you can build a secondary house in your backyard and use it for crisis and domestic accommodation purposes, and it’s exempt from planning regulations.”
Council CEO Mica Martin said the council acknowledged domestic violence was a key driver of homelessness for women and children.
“Council is currently assessing a number of development applications for social and affordable housing, such as recently announced large-scale proposals for Cairns City and Woree,” Ms Martin said.
“We are seeking to maximise diversity of housing supply.
“Council has also started developing a Community Resilience Strategy which will include addressing the interface between domestic and family violence, health and wellbeing, unemployment and housing instability and homelessness.”
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