Local community organisation YFS Ltd is calling on the Queensland Government to address the
housing crisis because the number of people who don’t have a stable and safe home has reached more than 47 thousand.
CEO Cath Bartolo has said those numbers are significant and would constitute the state’s fifth largest town if it had a place and name on the map.
“That’s why investment in more affordable and social housing is urgently needed particularly in Logan City where there are more than 1,500 families on the social housing register, and 53 percent of them are in urgent need of accommodation.
“Addressing homelessness is becoming more complex with unprecedented low vacancy rates for
both social and private rentals sitting at or below 1% in Queensland, and intense competition for
available rental stock with up to 50 families attending property viewings,” Ms Bartolo said.
Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) has partnered with YFS and 11 other community
organisations to launch a campaign calling on the Queensland Government to invest $4.1 billion
over four years to build 14,700 social housing dwellings for those most in need.
The “Town of Nowhere” campaign includes real life stories of everyday Queenslanders who are
experiencing housing insecurity.
Cath Bartolo said the campaign calls on all residents, no matter where they live, to tell the state
government to act on the housing crisis to create change that will turn struggle into stability, tents
into tenancies, and hope into homes.
“YFS has seen a 43% increase in people contacting us for help with homelessness and housing
since July 2020, with 627 enquiries in February 2021 alone. “A home is a basic need, but the supply of affordable housing isn’t keeping pace with the demand,” she said.
YFS has also experienced a bottleneck in emergency housing with the average length of stay in
their crisis properties now 123 nights or 17 weeks, compared with 62 nights this time last year.
Ms Bartolo said it’s the perfect storm, with landlords selling rental properties to take advantage of
the strong property market, most deferred loans resumed, eviction moratoriums ended, and people
on Jobseeker left below the poverty line when the payment was stopped on the 31st of March.
