$2b housing gamble to stop homelessness crisis

A homeless person sleeping rough in the Brisbane CBD. Picture: NewsWire/ Glenn Campbell

Experts fear historic $2b funding to tackle social housing supply and homelessness services could be overrun unless a bigger move is made to stop people falling into extremes in the first place.

The Queensland state budget saw an allocation of around $1.967b over four years to grow social and community housing supply, along with historic ongoing investment of $500m a year beyond that period – said to be the first permanent funding commitment of its kind in the state.

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The allocation was welcomed by sector peak body QShelter CEO Fiona Caniglia as “a strong signal that the government is serious about meeting its target of 53,500 social and community homes by 2044”.

Alongside that, $380.1m was allocated over five years to go into crisis accommodation and frontline homelessness services, of which $152.6m was for the 2025-26 financial year, and roughly $30-40m annually in subsequent years.

“We congratulate the 20pc funding uplift for specialist homelessness services (SHS). While this increased investment is very welcome and much needed, our proposals to government urge reforms that shift our focus from crisis management to genuine prevention.”

Ms Caniglia said “we can’t afford to wait until people’s circumstances are desperate to intervene”.

A homeless person in Brisbane. Experts are calling for more to be done to prevent people falling into such circumstances in the first place. Picture: NewsWire/ Glenn Campbell

QShelter’s 2026 budget submission called for the government to not just respond to current needs, but help prevent future homelessness and protect renters. It also identified the need to invest in workforce attraction, retention and wellbeing within the sector to sustain effective housing and homelessness services.

Queensland has around 76,000 social housing units, of which 64,500 are state-owned, with the remaining owned or managed by community housing providers (CHPs) – with the waitlist as of March 2025 sitting at 52,031 people.

The state’s most recent official data on homelessness, from the 2021 Census, estimated there were 22,428 people living rough, most of whom were in Brisbane LGA 7,517, Logan 3,950, Gold Coast 3,190, Moreton Bay 2,879, Ipswich 2,126 and Sunshine Coast 1,911.

Queensland’s homelessness snapshot:

State-wide: 22,428 people

– Brisbane LGA: 7,517

– Logan: 3,950

– Gold Coast: 3,190

– Moreton Bay: 2,879

– Ipswich: 2,126

– Sunshine Coast: 1,911

(Source: 2021 Census)

– Story by Katherine Lee

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