Council to crack down on city's campsites after locals erupt

Council and police will work together to crack down on "anti-social behaviour" across multiple homeless camps and tent cities in one East Coast state, after locals complained about a string of recent dangerous and violent incidents.

Brisbane is well-known for its densely populated tent cities, which anti-homelessness advocates say are increasing in prevalence as the nation continues to grapple with the devastating cost of living and housing crises.

Now, Brisbane City Council (BCC) and Queensland Police Service (QPS) have vowed to work together to clamp down on dangerous and illegal activity at the camps after residents argued there have been multiple recent "reports of stabbings, significant drug use and brawls spilling out into traffic in broad daylight".

A QPS spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia officers will patrol known homeless camps to ensure public safety. "The Queensland Police Service is committed to ensuring Brisbane residents are safe and acknowledges the complexity of homelessness," the spokesperson told Yahoo.

"Police, the BCC and various partner agencies and NGOs engage proactively to support rough sleepers and where possible assist with transitioning people into more suitable options. This collaboration is in addition to proactive patrols police conduct throughout community spaces to ensure safety and to prevent or disrupt any anti-social behaviour."

Previously speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Paul Slater, who runs the Northwest Community Group and manages a makeshift "tent city" in Musgrave Park, in Brisbane's south, said he's struggling to keep up with the enormous demand for his services, which he said has dramatically increased this year.

Slater gets dozens of messages every week from those seeking help and has supplied over 500 tents to battling Australians this year alone. He said this reflects that "within the last couple of decades, there's been an absolute failure on all levels of government" when it comes to social housing.

"It's clear to me we're in an emergency situation," he told Yahoo.

"I've got people calling me multiple times per day, sleeping on concrete with nowhere to go, no emergency accommodation," he previously told Yahoo. But despite obvious lack of adequate public housing in the city, locals living nearby some of these homeless camps say they are "concerned" about "parks becoming no-go zones", citing safety fears.

Locals at odds with rough sleepers in Brisbane

Resident David Mech told the ABC he has repeatedly complained to council about the state of homeless camps in the inner city. He said he'd like to see public camping made a crime, suggesting there should be a select campsite in Brisbane where rough sleepers are allowed, but prohibited everywhere else.

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"You should be able to walk to the grocery store with your children without them having to see people who are often unkempt, very smelly, oftentimes shouting obscenities," he said. "The regular residents of Brisbane have a right in my view to an aesthetically beautiful, clean city."

But Slater rubbished the idea. "This is all a great distraction from the fact that there is a massive shortage of emergency accommodation and adequate housing for these people," he said.

"[Many of these people] have already gone through trauma and institutionalisation, and increased police presence is unlikely to help them."

Dire figures paint grim picture of housing crisis in Australia

Meanwhile, concerning new research has painted a grim picture of homelessness in Australia more broadly, revealing up to 3.2 million in total are one “negative shock” away from homelessness.

These figures have drastically increased by 63 per cent since 2016, with the proportionate of at-risk people with wages and incomes increasing. A new landmark report from Impact Economics and Homelessness NSW titled "Call Unanswered" found that between 2016 to 2022 the number of Australians in danger of falling into homeless had increased from 1.5 to 2 million, to 2.7m to 3.2m.

As a result, specialist homelessness services like youth and domestic and family violence refuges, and crisis accommodation have been pushed to breaking point, with organisations forced to leave phones and urgent emails unanswered, and doors closed during operating hours in order to cope with demand.

Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin said the increasing rents has resulted in a much "broader population" of Australians needing homelessness services, including an uptick in people with employment and wages.

"The proportion of client who have a waged income has increased from 9 per cent in 2018-29 to 11.7 per cent in 2022-23. In 2018-19 the proportion of clients who had no income at all was 9.2 per cent and that’s up to 9.7 per cent," she said.

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