Council staff thought empty tents where homeless lived were ‘abandoned’

Brisbane City Council staff have been accused of removing tents from inner-city parks and dumping them, leaving some people without a home to return to.

Paul Slater, from North West Community Projects, accused the council’s public space liaison officers of being overzealous.

Monic McLean lives in a tent in Musgrave Park in South Brisbane. She has twice seen tents taken and dumped by council staff.Credit: Tony Moore

Slater has provided tents, clothes, sleeping bags and toiletries to the homeless at Musgrave Park, Kurilpa Point, Fortitude Valley’s Ivory Street and Cathedral Square in the CBD.

But he has learnt that charity goods are often dumped in an effort to dissuade homeless people from sleeping rough.

“As soon as they start getting larger numbers, the council comes in and starts moving people along,” said Slater, a member of the Greens who raised the issue with the media.

“They push them along, to keep the numbers low.”

His claims were supported by homeless people in the inner city.

In South Brisbane’s Musgrave Park, Monic McLean said “that’s all you’ve got in life, and they take it off you and dump it”.

“I’ve seen it happen twice,” McLean said.

Friend “Mel” said she had lost her makeshift home in Fortitude Valley.

“They don’t give you the opportunity to take your stuff,” she said.

Slater said he learnt council staff had removed tents he provided to people living in Cathedral Square to make way for a public market. One person was given 24 hours to move, while four others lost their tents while they were getting services.

“I told them that was disgraceful, but they said they had a compassionate approach to homelessness and move people on only if there is a safety concern, or if the space is being used for something else,” he said.

The council’s central ward councillor, Vicki Howard, said people living in tents were “never the solution” to a homeless crisis.

She said she had been told the council staff thought the empty tents were abandoned.

“I think if we have people who are providing tents, if they can provide their details, we are more than happy to contact them to say ‘this one appears to be abandoned’,” Howard said.

The council has unsuccessfully lobbied state and federal governments for the Pinkenba quarantine hub to be made available to homeless people.

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