Hitting Home: Faces of Queensland’s rental and housing crisis
These are the faces of the state’s housing crisis, as Queensland families and women are forced to sleep in tents, cars and streets.
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There are the faces of Queensland’s housing crisis as shrinking vacancy rates and soaring property prices force thousands into homelessness.
Collectively, they have applied for well over 500 rental properties — with no luck.
The state’s caravan parks and motels are full; there is no where to go.
The number of available rental properties has sunk well below one per cent in many communities in the state’s regions and the southeast while prices rise above 35 per cent, leaving Queenslanders on the brink of despair.
The crisis is impacting a broad section of demographics, who couldn’t imagine sleeping rough in the past — families are spending nights in their cars, tradies are sleeping in their utes, and more than 40,000 women over the age of 55 are homeless in Queensland.
Those on pensions don’t stand a chance of securing a private rental, while even those who have a steady income are routinely overlooked.
Homeless support services Rosie’s and Orange Sky say they’re now seeing a high frequency of families with small children sleeping in cars and in need of a shower and laundry.
“We are seeing homeless people in areas in the city we’ve never seen them in before. People are looking for little alcoves where they can sleep safely,” CEO of Rosies – Friends on the Street Jayne Shallcross said.
“We have had at least a 10 per cent increase on average across the branches – it might even be higher.
“There has been a real change in demographic. We have more women and families attending than ever before. It’s very obvious when you have a substantial increase in both women and families – and we are seeing more younger people and more older people. We have patrons in their 80s.
“And over the next few years, we would expect this situation to keep increasing.”
Micah Projects reported up to three women a week are returning to violent partners after fleeing domestic violence because of crisis accommodation facilities are full.
Vinnies have also been forced to provide emergency tents to the homeless in Cairns, Toowoomba, Roma, Warwick and Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.
The Courier-Mail is sharing a collection of experiences from people who are emblematic of a crisis impacting tens of thousands.
There simply isn’t enough homes, and these voices show how the insecurity of renting a home in Queensland leaves you completed lease away from sleeping on the streets.
SAMANTHA STEWART
Logan mother of four, Samantha Stewart, has lived in an Eagleby rental unit with her family for more than three years but the property’s recent sale means her family has until the end of the month to find a new home.
She has applied for “no idea how many” rental properties across Logan, across to Ipswich, Toowoomba and even as far north as Gladstone but has had no luck.
“I’m just not getting anywhere,” Ms Stewart said.
“Basically, no one can really help until you’re actually homeless and have nowhere to go — there’s pretty much nowhere you can go to get the help you need.”
She said the caravan parks and motels are full and the daunting deadline is creeping up on her family — particularly her youngest, who is 10 and is “starting to freak out about not having anywhere to go”.
Ms Stewart relies on the income of a carers’ payment and is regularly trumped by competing rental applicants who are able to place higher bids on properties.
“There’s nowhere to go,” she said.
“There are houses and it’s not that I can’t afford them, it’s just people with two and three incomes are getting put through, or people that can pay six months upfront are getting put through or pay more rent that what is being asked.”
ANGELA PICKERING
Angela Pickering, 51, once owned her own home with her former partner but is now living in a hostel in central Brisbane after leaving the marriage.
After selling her home, she said she applied for more than 100 rental properties but was rejected from them all and was at some stages forced to sleep on the streets.
Ms Pickering said she has enough money to comfortably pay rent and works in hospitality but her rental applications have been continually rejected.
“No one really wanted to look at me, they were looking at people who are putting down three to six months rent,” she said.
She said she lives in constant fear in insecure housing since succumbing to homelessness.
“There’s so many people in the backpackers that are in the same situation as me — they’ve left marriages, they’re homeless, and they’re slowly dying,” Ms Pickering said.
“They feel like society doesn’t care about them.”
TARA FARRELL
Tara Farrell and her young family have travelled thousands of kilometres in desperate search of a home.
The 27-year-old from the NSW south coast drove to Queensland this year with her partner and two children, aged two and one, in search of a home as the group hopped from various houses of friends, family and associates.
Ms Farrell’s father lives in Queensland, so the family was searching for a home near Caboolture but was staying in temporary accommodation as far west as Dalby.
She said the family has applied for social housing as well as dozens of private rentals and is regularly forced to stay in separate accommodation from her partner and one of their children, such is the insecurity of their arrangement.
Ms Farrell survives on Centrelink payments as she cares for her two small children and searches for a home.
“It is really hard because the kids are so used to being together and everybody being together and then when they’re apart, their whole routine goes out,” she said.
“We went to Queensland out of desperation because we couldn’t find any rentals or anything down here and my dad also lives in Queensland.
“We thought that we would get a lot more help and support up in Queensland and actually find the house and stuff like that, but it just didn’t happen.”
SHIKERA MAHER
Ipswich mother Shikera Maher said she’s applied for more than 400 private rentals in more than a year but has been knocked back from each.
She and her children have secured a social housing residence but she says it’s too small to house her family.
“I’m sort of in a sitting duck situation,” Ms Maher said. “And I’m still being declined, house after house after house after house.”
Ms Maher relies on Centrelink payments but pays $355 to live in social housing, which is similar to what she paid two years earlier in a private rental in a larger home.
The cost of leases have risen as vacancy rates shrink.
“People on a pension, a single mum — we don’t stand a chance,” she said.
ROS PRICE
Ros works as a florist but has been displaced since 2013, and she now relies on couch surfing at friends’ places while also sleeping rough on the streets.
She said “there’s no reason why anyone should be homeless”, saying social housing should be managed more productively and effectively by both the federal and state governments.
Ms Price said she served time in jail on charges related to public transport fare evasion, highlighting the vulnerabilities of the homeless and how basic day-to-day activities can have dramatic consequences for those who have insecure incomes and housing.
“The magistrate told me he was just doing his job — and it was a holiday: hot shower, a roof over my head, three meals a day, room service,” she said, with a wry smile.
If you want to share your experience of the housing crisis, email James Hall
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