Gympie not included in record state government housing fund
Despite hundreds still displaced following record floods during one of the worst housing emergencies in Queensland history, a southeast city won’t get a cent from any of the budget’s housing relief package in a move slammed as the “height of disrespect”.
Gympie
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The first stage of Queensland’s largest concentrated investment in social and affordable housing will not include the flood-stricken Gympie region, it has been confirmed.
Treasurer Cameron Dick announced on Monday the Palaszczuk Government would invest $1 billion into delivering a pipeline of up to 1200 new social and affordable homes amid the ongoing housing and rental crisis.
The fund is in partnership with community housing provider Brisbane Housing Company and the Queensland Investment Corporation.
Mr Dick said the first seven projects as part of this fund would deliver approximately 600 homes, with construction expected to start in 2023.
But as of Thursday the Gympie Times can confirm none of these projects will take place in the Gympie region, which has been struggling not only amid a years-long rental crisis worsened but also following various flood disasters in 2022.
A spokesperson from Mr Dick’s office said the new homes in question would be unit blocks, and “not really appropriate” for the Gympie region.
It comes as a Gympie family of six, including a father with a spinal disability and a son with a broken foot, made headlines on June 15 after they were rendered homeless, and Gympie resident Naomi Wilson was named a local legend after setting up a donation drive for countless flood affected families in Gympie.
Gympie MP Tony Perrett said the comment was the “height of disrespect” for Gympie region residents.
“It’s a shameful, a reprehensible treatment of people waiting for social housing,” he said.
“People are distressed, they are desperate.”
He said the electorate had a 3.75 per cent increase in social housing rooms between 2018 to 2021, but the number of people on the waiting list had increased by more than double that number at 7.7 per cent.
He also said this issue was worsened by pressure from the private rental market, which was level with the lowest vacancy rate on record for Gympie in April 2022, at 0.2 per cent.
This was then intensified when countless Gympie residents were displaced after the record-breaking February flood.
Mr Perrett said he asked Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch about whether the State Government had identified any land for future housing as part of the $10.5m funding for emergency accommodation in Gympie.
He said Ms Enoch replied that two projects were in the works to deliver three new homes, while a third project was in its final stages of design.
Additionally, another three sites had been identified as suitable for development.
A Communities, Housing and Digital Economy spokesperson said 170 new social homes will be built in the Wide Bay Burnett region, which includes Gympie, through a $49.7 million project to June 2025.
They said this was in addition to the 50 new social homes that are already commenced under the Queensland Housing Strategy.
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