Homeless welder opens up on living in new tent city at Gympie, Qld

A career tradesman and a chef are among the new “homeless” forced to live in a makeshift camp near the centre of a rapidly growing Qld city as the cost of living crisis continues to bite hard.

Jari Kallaste a welder by trade, and has had several jobs, including for Gympie’s successful Widgee Engineering company over the past few years.

For most of the past seven months, though, he has been sleeping on the streets.

Mr Kallaste is part of a small community of people now camping outside a shuttered business in Gympie’s Jaycee Way, opposite the city’s Memorial Park near the CBD.

The camp has been home to the group for about a month, with its members sleeping rough exposed to elements including a bitterly cold winter in which temperatures have dipped below zero degrees.

Speaking on Thursday, the 54-year-old who has been a Gympie resident for two decades described the conditions and the dangers he and other homeless people there faced.

“At the end of the day I’m not choosing to be (homeless) … I’m choosing to be here (with the group) … but even a caravan, or a room in a pub, doesn’t exist on my government payment,” Mr Kallaste said.

Jari Kallaste is part of a small community of people now camping out outside a shuttered business at Gympie’s Jaycee Way, opposite the city’s Memorial Park near the CBD.

His story was one becoming far too frequent in the region.

Census figures from 2021 reveal at the night of collection, 359 people reported themselves homeless in the Gympie local council area.

This included 121 living in “improvised” dwellings including tents, 63 in homeless accommodation, 113 in temporary households, and 62 living in “severely” crowded dwellings.

Another 344 people reported living in “marginal” housing, which included crowded dwellings and some caravan parks.

The total number reporting homelessness was up 19 per cent from the 2016 census, at which 289 people reported being homeless, and double the rate in 2011 when 169 reported homelessness.

The Australian Homelessness Atlas Census 2021 said on average 22 people per 10,000 were sleeping rough in the region, a rate tied for 10th highest in Queensland.

Mr Kallaste said he became homeless shortly after Christmas.

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The camp has been home to the group for about a month, with its members sleeping rough exposed to elements including a bitterly cold winter in which temperatures have scraped zero degrees.

He and another friend had been sleeping at the Sound Shell, an undercover stage in nearby Nelson Reserve until they were moved on.

“I can understand,” Mr Kallaste said.

“More people were turning up and it was two shopping trolleys, then four shopping trolleys, then half a dozen shopping trolleys, and 20 people a day all coming up to say ‘g’day’ and have a drink.

“Some people didn’t mind it … but some people didn’t like it.”

A new camp was established outside the building, with its transient community including a man who claimed to be a qualified chef with an arts degree, and for several years now had been living rough with his dog.

The man, who declined to be named, said it was a decision driven by constantly increasing cost of living prices.

This included weekly housing costs of about $300 per week on an income of only $900.

Instead the family now slept in a tent, moving around the various popular spots across the region.

Living this way left camp members without services many people took for granted.

Jari Kallaste said camp members were forced to walk several kilometres “in the cold to get to the Salvation Army, three days a week to have a shower”.

“Some people they turn up here and they’ve got nothing, just a sleeping bag,” Mr Kallaste said.

There was nowhere nearby to have a shower, and the public toilets were locked at night.

This was especially difficult for the women, who were left with little choices but to go behind trees in the middle of the night.

Camp members were forced to walk several kilometres “in the cold to get to the Salvation Army, three days a week to have a shower”.

Another camp member said it would be “good if we could get some support turning (the building) into a community centre” with washing machines and other services.

These were available at the Salvation Army but Mr Kallaste said it was “a long way to go”.

The group gets help from the region’s housing communities, local shops, a “brotherhood bikers” group, church groups and members of the public when possible.

“A lady just came up and goes ‘I’m just helping people out, I’m recovering food from Woolies and Coles’ … and offered some of the girls some clothes and offered her own shoes to one girl”.

The group set up outside the shuttered CBD building at the start of winter, after being moved on from a stage at a nearby park.

On another occasion a young service station worker turned up with a stack of hot food and said “here you go guys”.

But there was a battle against public stigma, too.

One woman who recently came to the Jaycee Way camp from Nambour, counted among her meagre belongings a broom she brought with her to keep the camp clean.

“Some people don’t care, they throw their trash everywhere and steal your s--t; you come back and the place is trashed,” Mr Kallaste said.

He tried keeping his own possessions in a shopping trolley, but after only one day he felt “humbled”.

“As soon as I pushed that shopping trolley for one day … you can see all the people driving past looking at you going ‘oh yeah, he’s living out of a shopping trolley’.”

Sleeping out at night is also dangerous.

“There’s a lot of d--kheads that cruise around at night … and come here and go ‘how are you going’ and try to socialise … and some of it’s bad.

“I’ve seen some bad things.

“I saw a young fella … about 45 get bashed for his $3000 outside the RSL.

“But there is good people.”

Mr Kallaste said a help would be if someone was able to provide people like those at the camp with an enclosed shelter.

The building they were outside had asbestos, but this problem was nothing compared to the other dangers.

“It would be good if they just had one building, if they had a security guard … let people walk in there and go to sleep and have a simple bath and toilet … we’re not a third world country.”