Second major Ruthven St social housing project to begin construction through St Vincents, Qld government

The state government is working with a prominent Australian charity to build a 60-home apartment block in the city’s CBD. Here’s what it will look like, why its concept will be ‘transformational’ for the city.

An artist’s impression of what the Ruthven St development will look like after completion. Photo: Contributed.

Construction on 56 social and four affordable homes is scheduled to begin by 2026, with St Vincents and the state government coming together to help meet Toowoomba’s growing housing crisis.

Located on Ruthven St in South Toowoomba, the site will be St Vinnies first development to include both homes and a family services centre.

The site is one of a number of social, affordable housing developments planned for the city, with Full Circle Projects planning a $24m project also on Ruthven St in North Toowoomba.

St Vincent de Paul Society chief executive Kevin Mercer said the cities housing crisis was the worst he had ever seen

St Vincent de Paul Society chief executive Kevin Mercer said the city’s housing crisis was the worst he had ever seen, and the homes would go a long way to helping get families off the street.

“Over the last 12 months we have seen the Toowoomba region grow in demands for essential services, over 23 per cent growth the highest in the state and a housing waitlist of over 3500 people,” he said.

“Having 60 new homes that we can place people into within Toowoomba is a good outcome, getting people in long term housing solutions is ultimately the solution for the housing crisis.”

He said the organisation would also offer support services to ensure people could address the issues that had led to their homelessness in the first place.

“It will be an important hub in the community, we will have our Toowoomba Regional Office here as well as a support and family services,” he said.

“We want to bring together our membership base to wrap around people living in the units to ensure they have a roof over their head and build their capacity going forward.

“When people come into housing it is not just providing a roof over their head it is understanding their circumstances and understanding what has brought them to where they are in their lives.”

The Ruthven St development will include 56 social and four affordable homes.

Housing and Public Works Minister Sam O’Connor said the announcement was monumental for Toowoomba.

“It is going to be transformational for this community,” he said.

“The project is part of our 53,500 community homes we are working to deliver, the budget included nearly $2bn in additional funding in this period alone to get more homes built taking our capital program to $5.6bn in construction funding.

“We want to be delivering 2000 social and community homes a year and we are determined to get there.”

The state government has invested $2bn to build more homes.

The state government also announced major funding for homelessness support.

“Our budget handed down last week included $600m additional funding for homelessness support and for this place right here that meant they are able to have two staff on shift,” Mr O’Connor said.

“The 20 per cent uplift in our services funding we have locked in through to join 2029 is transformational for services like Vinnies who support the most vulnerable in our community.

“It also means we have been able to increase our support to crisis accommodation which has never been more important than it is right now.

“We have doubled the funding for head leasing where we will take out a lease on a property and offer it up to our most vulnerable and we have shored up funding for our hotel and motel accommodation but the only way we will get out of this housing crisis is by building more homes.

“Beyond the budget period we have also locked in $500m a year as baseline funding.”

Construction on the project will begin late 2026 to early 2027.

Originally published as Second major Ruthven St social housing project to begin construction through St Vincents, Qld government