Homeless, sleeping rough: Qld’s social housing wait list crisis

More than of half of Queenslanders on the state’s ballooning social housing waitlist are homeless or at risk of sleeping rough, with new data revealing the crisis is deepening.

More than of half of Queenslanders on the state’s ballooning social housing waitlist are homeless or at risk of sleeping rough, with new data revealing the crisis is deepening.

And in a further blow families with children are increasingly languishing on the state’s social housing waitlist — with an average wait time of 28 months for a government home as of December 2023.

Queensland Council of Social Service has warned children are being put in “precarious situations”, sometimes for years, amid the “concerning and also significant” rise in families requiring help.

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.

Homeless tent and rough living is occurring along the Bicentennial Bikeway from Victoria Bridge though to William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane.

A staggering 22,350 Queenslanders on the waitlist have been flagged as homeless or at risk of becoming homeless — making up more than half of those on the register.

QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh said the increase in people on the waitlist meant Premier Steven Miles’ promise to find every Queenslander on the brink of homelessness crisis accommodation was “really significant”.

She also took aim at the LNP, saying Queensland was facing a “high likelihood of a change in government” come October and the Opposition was yet to provide commitments on how they plan to address the housing crisis.

“What the data is showing really does reflect what services are telling us on the ground, that there is more and more need for responses for families with children and in particular single parent households,” Ms McVeigh said.

“We do need to make sure that government is prioritising vulnerable families with children because the consequence of not doing that bears out in other systems like the youth justice system (and) the child protection system.”

A number of tents belonging to people who are homeless at a park in Rothwell in Brisbane.

The state government in recent days revealed it had expanded its existing immediate housing relief program, designed for families, to include anyone at risk of homelessness.

New laws designed to ban rent bidding and pave the way for a rental sector code of conduct were also introduced to parliament last week.

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said the government Homes for Queenslanders plan — which includes an ambitious $1.25bn plan to deliver 53,500 social homes by 2046 — aimed to provide safe shelter for all.

“We’re also delivering upfront support for people right now, including funding for emergency accommodation and direct cost of living relief for renters, while we get on with our Big Build,” she said.

Opposition housing spokesman Tim Mander said the LNP’s priorities on housing lay in “infrastructure partnerships with councils to release more land, welcoming community housing sector growth after a decade of decline and providing yearly social housing targets”.

“The LNP will also end poor planning in Queensland by ensuring a proper infrastructure strategy to provide housing options in growing area without compromising the lifestyle of those who already call out state home,” he said.