The City of Moreton Bay Council has said it will permit unhoused people, who register with council, to camp in Wyllie Park under a new 12-month trial.
Those who register are entitled to camp, for free, but only up to 42 days within a 12-month period.
The trial motion for Wyllie Park, moved by independent councillor Jim Moloney, was unanimously supported at the August 12 meeting. The park is located across the road from the $205.5 million Olympic facility.
Those who decide to camp will be required to adhere to strict terms and conditions. The council will erect CCTV cameras for security and maintain existing toilet and refuse facilities without the campers incurring any costs.
The decision comes after council was found in March by the Queensland Supreme Court to have violated unhoused people’s human rights, after it evicted people from public land and confiscated, and destroyed their property.
City of Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery told the ABC the trial is linked the court’s findings. He said it learned “that we shouldn’t have been asking them to move to somewhere when there was nowhere else to go. So this is providing that somewhere else to go.”
Flannery said the trial showed council’s attitude towards the unhoused was “compassionate, if they can show respect for public space”.
He also said “council’s hands are tied” with respect to how it responds to unhoused persons and that evicting the unhoused was previously justified as a measure to “keep people safe”.
However, one council’s decision to temporarily decriminalise homelessness in a single park does not solve the problem of housing unaffordability particularly in the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Moreton Bay regions.
While some have talked up this initiative, others are concerned that it is a temporary half measure that will lead to new problems.
Beau Haywood, founder of homelessness service Nourish Street told the ABC on August 13: “Simply providing somewhere for people to pitch a tent without adequate support, security and pathways into permanent housing risks creating another problem, whether they are solving one we already have.”
Dr Gregory Smith, an academic and survivor of homelessness, told the ABC: “They’re trying to do well, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. People need permanent housing. It’ll attract people that are close to housing vulnerability. It’ll attract more issues for the council.”
As Moloney told the Brisbane Times on August 12, the council’s decision does not establish an encampment or provide housing to those without homes. “The only thing we are deciding is whether they are there under a managed framework with rules, accountability and oversight, or whether they remain there unmanaged.”
Moloney was more explicit in his motion to council: “Wyllie Park was not selected because council wants camping to occur there. Wyllie Park was selected because camping is already occurring there. It already has basic infrastructure.
“This motion gives council something we do not currently have: Control.”
Council also said this in its motion that the camp is “not an alternative to established crisis accommodation or emergency housing”, adding that “the state is responsible for crisis accommodation and longer-term community housing”.