PEOPLE living in a make-shift homeless refuge at Capalaba – known as tent city – have been given an ultimatum to move on.
About eight people still have belongings in the reserve near Coolnwynpin Creek.
It is understood the instruction to move has come after a complaint to council.
Deputy mayor Lance Hewlett said tent city residents were human beings in need and most people would prefer far greater compassion was exercised.
“Taking the hard compliance line, which council is compelled to do after a formal complaint is raised, only serves to scatter this disadvantaged group and hamper delivery of the help they desperately need,” Cr Hewlett said.
We need to somehow provide a safe environment for people who are homeless.
- Cr Wendy Boglary
On November 12, Bowman MP Andrew Laming posted on social media an aerial photograph of the bush campsite, saying it presented the city with a moral question.
“Has public housing reached a point where we now support people to live in our parks – and call the situation complex?” he said.
One man who lives in the reserve said he had felt exposed by the social media post.
He said their belongings were not visible from the road and were in a secluded part of the reserve.
The residents said police had visited three times over the past 10 days, searching their belongings and checking identities.
“The police said they’d keep coming back until we had moved,” the man said.
Another man who previously lived at tent city said thugs on motorbikes terrorised them earlier this year by slashing and riding over tents and defecating and urinating on their belongings.
He said homeless were labelled as druggies and trouble makers but were just people who did not have a roof over their head.
Cr Wendy Boglary said all levels of government needed to work together to deal with homelessness and moving people on was not the solution.
“Society is judged on how we treat our most vulnerable,” she said.
Being homeless impacts on finding a job. It makes it so much harder.
- Homeless person living in Tent City
“There are so many pressures with the cost of living these days. This could happen to any one of us.
“We need to somehow provide a safe environment for people who are homeless.”
A 61-year-old man said he had could not pay rent after losing his job.
“I was couch surfing with friends,” he said. “It was me and my partner and 16-year-old son.
“Now we’ve been told that we have to be out .”
The man said the family was struggling to find emergency accommodation.
On the day he was expecting to be evicted from tent city he had a job interview.
He said trying to find work while sleeping rough was difficult.
“Being homeless impacts on finding a job,” he said. “It makes it so much harder.”
A 25-year-old resident said he became homeless after being assaulted in a domestic violence-related incident.
He said the government required five years of a good rental history for social housing but many people sleeping rough could not supply that, especially if they were teenagers or in their 20s.
Redland Community Centre’s Homeless United program leader Horowai Rameka said the centre was working with service providers and organisations to offer showers, food and laundromat facilities to people sleeping rough, including those at tent city.
Mr Rameka said he had let up to six people sleep at his house this week to help them.
