Cairns housing: Families living in concerning conditions at Kuranda resort

Tourists may once have splashed in the pool in a rainforest paradise – but now it is home to families with nowhere else to go. JOIN THE DISCUSSION

RESIDENTS at a Far North resort are being turfed out with nowhere to go – and those left behind are living in concerning conditions.

Barely habitable villas at Kuranda Resort are home to those with no other option, and they are living without basics like hot water at the site.

Past the graffiti, smashed up cars, piles of rubbish and through overgrown paths at what initially seems to be a deserted resort, families live precariously in the shadows.

Mareeba Community Housing manager Patricia Goldfinch said her organisation was working with about 30 families given eviction notices after a liquidator was appointed over about two-thirds of the shacks.

Tenants at the Kuranda Resort on Green Hills Rd are living in concerning conditions. Picture: Bronwyn Farr.

“There are a number of owners in that consortium and liquidators have been appointed over one of the owners of about 30 units,” Ms Goldfinch said.

“Some of the units have been boarded up in the last 10 days, some people have been locked out of their units already.

“There’s still others living there, in a deplorable situation, some of them don’t have electricity, running water only in the bathroom, and no cooking facilities,” Ms Goldfinch said.

Annalisa Buchanan is paying $200 per week rent to live in a one-bedroom villa with a rotting staircase, no hot water and holes in grubby walls.

Ms Buchanan said there was often violence at neighbouring properties.

“It gets pretty scary sometimes – you go out to the car and wonder if it will have its tyres slashed or a windscreen smashed,” she said.

“There’s yelling and screaming, you can literally hear people having punches connected to them, you can hear the thuds, you can hear things getting smashed – one woman had a bottle thrown through a glass window.

“It is very depressing – when I first walked in, all I could smell was urine,” Ms Buchanan said.

“I have wanted to give up many times.”

She bought an electric cooktop to provide meals for her 23-year-old son Logan, and 10-year-old daughter Zoe, both of whom have disabilities.

Her 17-year-old son is staying with a Cairns family to complete school.

“I have never had a key for the front door, we do have a padlock but the door is flimsy,” Ms Buchanan said.

“Logan went through the rotten front step.

“We have no hot water and there’s a tap in the bathroom running constantly, the pipes under the house are broken and there’s water everywhere,” she said.

She has doggedly advocated for her family, linking with The Hub and Kuranda Community Centre, and has just learned there is a state-owned house at Edmonton earmarked for her.

“It’s got mountain views, it is going to be really nice, we’ll get my daughter’s therapy dog out of YAPS,” she said.

Ms Buchanan was evicted from a northern beaches home and admits she was behind on the rent – but she says she is among many families who were caught out when the State government’s Covid rent reprieve ended, and that she is also among many Centrelink payment recipients who did not receive the $550 Covid supplement.

She said MP for Barron Craig Crawford had recently visited and was “appalled”.

The Cairns Post has sought comment from Mr Crawford and from Mareeba Shire Council.

Ms Buchanan said it was difficult to understand how the federal government could splash out $10m on Cairns Art Precinct when people in the Far North faced homelessness due to a critical shortage of affordable housing.

“When I heard about the money for the arts precinct, I thought, ‘what the hell’ – why not buy houses up, and give people homes to live in,” she said.

In April, the federal government announced it would match $10m funding with Cairns Regional Council for an Indigenous art gallery, coming on top of a State government splash out of $15m on Cairns Performing Arts Centre and $5.9m on Bulmba-ja Arts Centre.

Originally published as Cairns housing: Families living in concerning conditions at Kuranda resort