Gympie homeless numbers rise, more tents appear on Southside

An emerging tent city on Gympie’s Southside is testament to the region’s desperate and growing homeless situation of ordinary people caught in an impossible loop and with almost no support.

A small group of homeless people living in tents near the Showgrounds on Gympie’s Southside has doubled in size as the region’s homelessness worsens.

Between escalating house prices, the rental crisis and those displaced by the February floods, the number of people living in tents and out of their cars continues to rise - with no end in sight.

A Ramsay Rd park on the Southside now has a small cluster of four tents, where a few weeks ago there was one or two.

One of those people living there is 31-year-old Jackson Cochrane, who grew up in the Gympie region but had been living on the streets of Brisbane since October 2021.

“I couldn’t find a (rental property) down there, and due to family issues I was forced to leave that and became homeless from there,” Mr Cochrane told The Gympie Times.

Jackson Cochrane, 31. Photo: Jorina Maureschat

“I came back up this way because I knew people up here.”

Mr Cochrane returned to the region just before Christmas, where he lived with a friend for a while before having to pitch his tent.

From there, things only got worse as he was shunted from area to area around town; though he said he did not understand the point in moving people along, given it was not solving the issue.

“You want me to move but you don’t have anywhere I can go and there’s no houses that are available. What are you expecting everyone that’s put in this position to do?”

It might not look like much, but it’s home: the number of tents in a park on Gympie’s Southside has doubled in recent weeks. Photo: Jorina Maureschat

He said support for the homeless in Gympie was also lacking, having been palmed off from organisation to organisation.

“It was just the same thing with every organisation. They would say ‘we can’t help you, try these people’, and then I would ring them and they would say ‘we can’t help you, try these people’ and it would just be a big loop.”

Mr Cochrane said the tight rental market had been an issue for years, and had only gotten worse since the February 2022 floods.

“My ex partner and myself, long before we became homeless and before the rental crisis, we were looking for houses for like two years and every house we rocked up to there was like 60 cars by the time we got there.”

Gympie volunteer Marlene Owen helps feed up to 40 homeless people in Nelson Reserve.

Homeless advocate and volunteer Marlene Owen, who regularly feeds the homeless in Nelson Reserve, said she had also seen an increase in the number of homeless people needing help. Between 28 and 40 people are fed regularly by volunteers in Nelson Reserve.

Mrs Owen said she believed it was from the steadily worsening housing crisis, particularly increased rent.

The old Gympie caravan park will be turned into housing for residents displaced by the February 2022 floods. Mayor Glen Hartwig is pictured with Minister Leeanne Enoch and staff.

In April 2022, the Gympie Regional Council announced a joint $10.5 million initiative with the State Government to turn the old caravan park on Jane St into temporary housing for those displaced by the floods.

But despite claims the caravan park would lessen the homelessness situation, Mrs Owen, who has been outspoken on Gympie’s homelessness issue, said the initial problem remained.

She said plans for a homeless shelter, which she had been pushing for months, might happen “down the track”.

“It has only taken governments 15-20 years to realise,” she said in relation to how big the problem was.

“All governments need to work with communities and they should not wait for major disasters to get something to happen.”