Queensland’s housing crisis is often described as though it were a natural disaster—something that simply happened.
We hear about population growth, interest rates, construction costs and shortages of skilled workers. These pressures are real, but they do not explain why governments allowed housing supply and social housing to fall so far behind need.
The 2021 Census estimated that 22,428 Queenslanders were experiencing homelessness.
In 2024–25, approximately 54,700 Queenslanders received help from specialist homelessness services, and 61 per cent were already homeless when they first sought assistance.
Even more concerning, the number of Queensland clients experiencing persistent homelessness—defined as being homeless for more than seven months during a two-year period—more than doubled from about 4,200 in 2018–19 to more than 9,900 in 2024–25.
These are not merely housing statistics. They represent people sleeping in cars, moving between relatives, living in overcrowded accommodation or trying to raise children without a secure home.
The gap we have accepted
Queensland is part of one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
We have billionaires, investment portfolios and property empires at one end of society. At the other, people with jobs cannot find affordable rentals, families wait years for social housing and older Queenslanders face homelessness.
That gap should not be accepted as normal.
The existence of great wealth does not itself cause homelessness, and success should not be treated as shameful. But extraordinary private wealth existing alongside homelessness reveals something deeply wrong with our priorities.
A society capable of producing billionaires is capable of housing its people.
We do not lack land, knowledge or resources. What appears to be missing is the determination to organise them around a basic social obligation.
Governments are not powerless
Governments frequently talk about housing as though it is primarily a market problem.
But governments create the rules within which the housing market operates.
They decide where homes may be built, how long approvals take, what infrastructure is provided and how public land is used. They control social-housing investment, tenancy laws, taxation settings and many of the incentives affecting property investment.
Queensland’s social-housing supply has not kept pace with need. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the proportion of Queensland households living in social housing fell from 3.7 per cent in 2016 to 3.5 per cent in 2025.
As at 31 August 2026, the Queensland Government’s OpenHome dashboard recorded 41,995 people in 24,454 active households on the social-housing register.
The government has committed to delivering 53,500 additional social and community homes by 2044. Its latest figures report 4,672 homes delivered toward that target, with another 7,018 social and affordable homes under construction or contract.
That investment is welcome and should be acknowledged.
But the timetable also deserves scrutiny. For a family living in a car today, 2044 is not a housing solution.
The question is not whether governments are doing anything. It is whether they are acting at the speed and scale the crisis requires.
What initiative would look like
There is no single solution. That is not an excuse for failing to pursue several solutions at once.
Queensland could establish a permanent public development authority with the power to acquire land, build mixed-income housing and retain that housing for future generations.
Instead of continually selling valuable public sites, governments could retain ownership and offer long-term leases. Rental income could then help finance the next generation of homes.
Planning rules should allow more well-designed apartments, townhouses and smaller homes near transport, employment and services. This does not require turning every suburb into a forest of towers. It means providing more choices than detached houses on increasingly expensive blocks.
Secure, long-term renting should also become a genuine alternative to home ownership. Germany demonstrates how indefinite leases and stronger protections can give renters greater stability. Vienna shows what sustained municipal and publicly supported housing can achieve: the city owns about 220,000 homes, alongside approximately 200,000 co-operative homes.
Queensland should also audit assets already controlled by governments—surplus sites, underused offices, publicly owned car parks and land around transport corridors.
In appropriate locations, development above or beside railway infrastructure should be investigated. Japanese cities demonstrate how housing, shops, workplaces and services can be integrated with rail stations and surrounding land.
Not every railway site will be suitable. Engineering, noise, access and construction costs must be considered.
Railway land is not the answer to the housing crisis. It is one example of the initiative that has been missing.
Should housing be a right?
Access to safe, secure and affordable housing should be recognised as a fundamental right.
That would not mean every person receives a free house. Nor would it guarantee ownership of a detached home in a preferred suburb.
It would mean governments have a continuing obligation to make reasonable and measurable progress—and must explain themselves when they fail.
A Queensland or national Housing Rights and Accountability Act could establish long-term supply targets, transparent reporting and plans that cannot quietly disappear after an election.
Constitutional recognition would be a much larger step requiring a national debate and, ultimately, a referendum. Legislation could begin establishing the responsibility now.
A right without a plan to build homes would be an empty promise. A housing plan without accountability can be postponed, reduced or abandoned.
We need both supply and responsibility.
A home, not a handout
Stable housing helps people work, study, raise children and remain healthy. It can also reduce pressure on hospitals, police, crisis services and welfare organisations.
Affordable housing leaves households with more money to spend in local businesses instead of directing an ever-increasing share of their income toward rent or mortgage repayments.
Housing is not simply another consumer product. It is essential social and economic infrastructure.
For people across Wynnum, Manly and Brisbane’s bayside, this determines whether children can remain near their schools, older residents can stay in their community and essential workers can afford to live near their jobs.
Queensland cannot eliminate every housing difficulty overnight. But governments should no longer be permitted to present this crisis as something beyond their control.
The question is not whether we can provide abundant and secure housing.
We can.
The question is why it has not been treated with the urgency, initiative and responsibility Queenslanders should expect from governments that work for us.
Homelessness amid extraordinary wealth is not evidence that housing is an impossible problem. It is evidence that solving it has not been made important enough.