Vulnerable locals who were set to lose their beds today at an inner-city hostel, sheltering homeless people, have been given a three-month reprieve as authorities race to find alternative accommodation.
About 65 residents at Big Bird Backpackers, which started housing people who were sleeping rough during COVID-19, were set to lose their accommodation today after lease negotiations had broken down and the manager had been given until today to find an extra $400,000 a year to keep the doors open.
But hostel manager Mark Farries told ABC Radio Brisbane an eleventh-hour agreement had been reached, allowing a three-month extension for the hostel to stay open and authorities time to find new accommodation for residents.
"We are in the position where we've secured a three-month period, with support from [the Department of] Housing, to remain open," Mr Farries said.
"What we wanted was obviously a program to make sure everybody there was properly housed, if we weren't going to be there.
"You imagine that government is sort of sleeping, there's cobwebs around the offices and that type of thing … It isn't like that, [the Department is] pretty dynamic, from 48 hours after the story broke and we'd written to the minister, we had [the Department of] Housing onto us saying right, 'what's going on there?'."
Mr Farries said frontline department of housing staff had "camped out" in the reception of the hostel, making an inventory of the people staying there.
Residents at the one-time backpackers in Spring Hill are required to pay about $175 per week, where possible, for a bunk bed, power, and Foodbank-donated meals.
When Mr Farries first told residents they would have to leave, he said he could see the distress on their faces. So telling the residents they would not have to leave the hostel was like switching off a "pressure cooker".
"It was fantastic to see people's faces [when they heard of the reprieve]," Mr Farries said.
Micah Projects chief executive Karyn Walsh said it was a good outcome.
"It gives us more time. There is an emergency housing response, which is looking at what beds in the system are available, and then also where there's an expansion of emergency services," she said.
"It's good that today isn't the day, it gives us more time to plan what can happen.
"There is an emergency response activated, it's a collaboration between all the NGOs, the Department of Housing."
The property owner confirmed there was now a three-month extension but declined to comment further.
Housing team 'activated'
Nearby, 50 people living at Cliveden Mansions in Spring Hill are also set to lose their housing after the property was recently sold.
A Department of Housing spokesperson said the department was working to find accommodation for residents at both properties.
The spokesperson said the extension of the lease at Big Bird Backpackers will allow time for the department to work closely with residents to find more appropriate, needs based accommodation.
"We have activated a dedicated Housing Pathways team working on site with people staying [at the backpackers] and continue to actively work with them to establish their needs and housing options. This team will remain onsite and continue to engage with residents," the spokesperson said.
They said a similar team will be set up at Cliveden Mansions next week.
"A number of alternative accommodation options have been identified for residents in both properties, including in boarding houses, local Specialist Homelessness Services funded sites and hotels and motels across the Brisbane LGA," they said.
"We are focused on maximising and prioritising the capacity we have across the supported and crisis accommodation system."
