Qld Govt’s social housing promise to deliver 1000 homes has only produced 55 after eight months

A flagship government housing announcement spruiked as getting 1000 private market properties into use for social housing has only delivered homes for 55 families in more than eight months.

A flagship government housing announcement spruiked as getting 1000 private market properties into use for social housing has only delivered homes for 55 families in more than eight months.

Publicly launched in July last year, the government’s Help to Home scheme was touted as a “groundbreaking initiative” by then Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch.

The government pitched the scheme as offering private landlords a two-year headleasing arrangement, which would give them a guaranteed income and which would be paid three years in advance.

But while the government allocated $40m to headlease up to 1000 private properties over two years, new documents tabled to parliament reveal just 55 properties had been approved for the scheme as of April 1 this year.

Former Queensland Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch visits a social housing construction site at Eight Mile Plains in Brisbane’s south in 2022. Picture: NCA Newswire / Dan Peled

Queensland’s new Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said there was no “single solution” to the tackling the state’s housing issues, but that it was important to be “innovative and creative”.

“The department went out to expressions of interest to see if there could be more headleasing opportunities, however private rental market conditions and demand changed in that time impacting the take up,” she said.

“What’s clear is beyond our record build, we need to look at different ways to help address the demand for housing.

“We’ve done that with recent announcements like the land audit and prefabricated builds.”

Ms Scanlon said the government would continue to work with the federal government as well as councils, organisations and industry to look at ways to best tackle housing solutions.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the Help to Home program has “failed to deliver the help Queenslanders were promised and the homes they were counting on”.

A $22.6 million social housing apartment complex in Brisbane has opened off a collaboration between the Queensland Government, The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC), and specialist community housing provider BlueCHP. Picture: BlueCHP

“After more than six-months and three housing forums, the Palaszczuk Government is still no closer to delivering the solutions needed,” he said.

“The LNP has solutions to solve Queensland’s Housing Crisis which includes infrastructure partnerships to deliver more land for housing, working with the community housing sector and building government social housing projects on-time and on-budget.”

Since the scheme was launched the rental market has significantly shifted, with vacancy rates dropping from 3 per cent to less than 1 per cent.

The Courier-Mail understands the government would now look to reinvest the bulk of the $40m which had not been spent on the Help to Home scheme into other social and affordable housing schemes.

Queensland Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

But LNP housing spokesman Tim Mander slammed the program as “another monumental service failure”.

“We’ve seen the Griffith University Accommodation dumped, projects without a single sod turned, prefabricated homes not built and now rental properties not secured,” he said.

“As long as the Palaszczuk Labor Government is focused on their own chaos and crisis, they can’t deliver the housing Queenslanders are desperately waiting for during a housing crisis.”