Cairns housing: Q Shelter pushes for FNQ social housing solution
A Far North housing crisis has been the catalyst for a push to unlock more low cost home construction with calls from Qld’s peak homelessness body to tackle the home shortage in a similar way to a natural disaster.
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A FAR North housing crisis has been the catalyst for a push to unlock more low cost home construction through a rethink of rules limiting acceleration of desperately needed social housing stock.
In a pre-budget submission the state’s peak body for housing and homelessness service has pushed for “upstream responses”, better homelessness provider collaboration and $300m in grant funding to get affordable housing projects off the ground.
Queensland Housing data reveals 2340 people on the social housing register and 5750 clients registered for specialist homelessness services throughout the Cairns region.
Q Shelter strategic engagement and policy manager Jackson Hills said the crisis, now impacting 1357 people defined as being homeless, needed to be tackled in a similar whole-of-government approach enacted when natural disasters hit.
“The situation is urgent,” he said.
“Queensland’s housing crisis has drawn unprecedented levels of concern from across the community recently, and that further highlighted here in Cairns.”
In Cairns a worsening situation has led to Anglicare North Queensland to call for homeowners to flip holiday and Airbnb properties into long-term rentals and a bold plan to convert vacant commercial tenancies in the CBD into residential dwellings.
Part of a strategy pushed by Q Shelter is integrated learning and accommodation for young people aged 16-25 known as a youth foyer. One is currently in Logan and a Gold Coast and Townsville unit are in development but six are already up and running in regional Victoria.
Regulation tweaks to incentivise new housing builds that allow housing providers to borrow against their portfolios was another way to drive low cost housing construction, Mr Hills said.
“The supply challenges are so dire, we really need both government and private sector funding to stimulate the growth required,” he said.
As at June 17, the Queensland Government had delivered 175 new social homes in Far North Queensland since the launch of the Queensland Housing Strategy (2017-2027). This includes 137 new social homes in the Cairns Local Government Area of which 18 have been delivered this financial year.
But Mr Hills said a more agile planning framework that enables more efficient use of public land, more diversity in housing stock, growth targets that address estimated population increases were needed to address a critical housing shortage and rental vacancy rates sitting at 0.5 per cent.
Mr Hills said Tuesday’s state budget was a housing crisis “litmus test” and all stakeholders needed to be focused on removing every obstacle to success in delivering more housing.
On Monday the state government announced a commercial partnership between community housing provider Brisbane Housing Company and the Queensland Investment Corporation that’s expected to deliver 1200 new social and affordable homes to start next year.
The partnership is a model that has not been seen before in Queensland.
Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch said $1.9bn would be invested during a four-year period through the new Queensland Housing Investment Growth Initiative.
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Originally published as Cairns housing: Q Shelter pushes for FNQ social housing solution
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