Fears for inner Brisbane homeless after they are moved on for Paniyiri Festival

The government has been urged to guarantee housing for rough sleepers at Brisbane’s Musgrave Park ahead of the Paniyiri Greek Festival.

More than a dozen community organisations have called for the state government to guarantee housing for rough sleepers at Brisbane’s Musgrave Park ahead of the Paniyiri Greek Festival, warning temporary crisis accommodation is not enough.

Advocates have been growing increasingly concerned the homeless population at the park will be moved into crisis accommodation in the lead-up to the event in mid-May before ultimately being forced back on to the streets.

They are also worried fences erected ahead of the two-day festival would limit access to those living in the park.

According to Micah Projects, 55 people had been moved into motels in the last fortnight. It is understood there were five people living in Musgrave Park as of Sunday, with most so far declining assistance from the government funded outreach team.

In a joint letter to Premier Steven Miles and Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon, 15 advocates including Rhianon Ellis from Feeding 4101 and Erin Mawhinney from the West End Uniting Church called for the government to guarantee permanent housing for all of Musgrave Park residents.

And until that can be secured, they should be provided ongoing affordable and safe lodgings. They also asked for the lodgings to be suitable for a person’s individual circumstances and needs and to be provided without bias to immigration status, health, disability or mental health conditions.

Some of the tents being used by the homeless in Brisbane’s Musgrave Park. Picture: Lachie Millard

“Temporary crisis accommodation is insufficient – and will only cause distress when people are forced back out on to the street,” they wrote.

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said “under no circumstance” should anyone be leaving crisis accommodation and back into homelessness.

Ms Scanlon, in a radio interview on Sunday, said the government-funded outreach team at Musgrave Park had in the last 12 months assisted 500 people into accommodation and long-term housing.

She indicated some long-term rough sleepers at Musgrave Park had been helped into permanent accommodation in that time and while some had refused support, the government would “continue to work with them”.

“No one should be entering into homelessness from emergency accommodation,” Ms Scanlon said.

“We’re continuing to work on all parts of the housing spectrum to make sure that we’re helping people wherever they are.”

The calls for people in Musgrave Park to be offered permanent and stable public or community housing comes after new social housing waitlist figures released last month revealed more than half of Queenslanders on the list were homeless or at risk of sleeping rough.

The number of people on Queensland’s social housing register rose from 41,848 in June 2023 to 43,782 in December 2023 according to the latest quarterly data.

Nearly a third of all applications, or 7227 of 24,991, were households with children, up from 5988 of 25,364 in June.