Violence and anti-social behaviour has escalated in Brisbane’s largest tent cities, forcing the council to cut power to the area to try to keep the local community safe.
The squalid homeless encampments in Musgrave Park and Kurilpa Point Park have grown throughout the past year due to Australia’s mass immigration-driven housing and rental crises, but have become increasingly unsafe over the last month, forcing Brisbane City Council to take action.
“We’re genuinely concerned about the serious escalation of violence and anti-social behaviour in these encampments, including alleged stabbings, fires and vandalism of electric barbecues, and have switched off the power for safety reasons,” Councillor Sarah Hutton told The Courier Mail.
Tents at Musgrave Park have been torched, stabbings have been reported, community barbecues are regularly vandalised, the homeless have taken over public picnic tables, and there has been a massive rise in drug-fuelled violence, tent city “residents” community workers said
“It’s horrible there has been so much violence, it has gotten worse with the drug thing,” said one tent dweller who complained that she was unable to charge her phone since the council had turned off the electricity.
The CEO of non-profit Micah Projects, Karyn Walsh, confirmed that the tent cities had been “unsettled” in recent weeks.
“There has certainly been an increase in fires and there’s certainly violence, it happens regularly, when you get that tense build up,” she said.
“People are also very mindful of the potential for violence, I mean that’s the nature of when you’ve got groups of people living in tents in public spaces.”
In August a visitor to the city told Noticer News he saw four homeless junkies wandering around Musgrave Park on a weekend, and filmed an Indian man urinating in the open, and shared a video of the scene.
Brisbane’s squalid tent cities are multiplying as homelessness surges due to Australia’s immigration-fuelled housing crisis.
A visitor sent Noticer News this clip of an encampment in Musgrave Park where an Indian man can be seen urinating in the open.https://t.co/LmtxzmfiQe pic.twitter.com/j5z8J5QH8a
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) August 22, 2024
Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said at the time that government employees had been out offering tent city dwellers alternative accommodation, but only one person had accepted.
However, Brisbane City Council claimed there was nothing it could do if people living in tents refused to be housed elsewhere, and could only remove tents that have been abandoned for 48 hours.
Brisbane overtook Melbourne and Canberra in June to become the city with the second highest home prices in the country, with prices up 65% since 2020 and rental vacancy rates at 1.1% in July.
According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics overseas migration data, Queensland accepted 83,990 immigrants in the 2022-23 financial year, and Brisbane’s population grew by 81,220 in the year to June 2023.
51,801 were overseas migrants, 15,332 moved from other parts of Australia, and there was a natural increase of 14,087 people.
These figures are mirrored nationwide, with Australia accepting 737,000 immigrants over the same period, a net gain of 518,000.
In March this year Big Four financial services firm Deloitte described Australia’s housing market as “uncomfortably tight” due to demand far exceeding supply.
“The root of Australia’s housing crisis is that supply is failing to keep up with rising demand. Demand has escalated in line with strong population growth driven by record high net overseas arrivals through 2023,” Deloitte said in a note.
Header image: A tent on fire a Musgrave park, a vandalised public barbecue, drug paraphernalia on picnic tables taken over by the homeless
