Getting Brisbane’s Quarantine Centre ready for the homeless

Politicians from all three levels of government are arguing about Brisbane’s Quarantine Centre being used to house the homeless, and the media and homelessness services have weighed in on the argument as well.

The simple fact is that it is not yet fit for the purpose of housing 500 homeless people, and this article will look at what needs to be done to bring it up to scratch.

Firstly, the individual units do not have kitchen or laundry facilities; they have a centralised kitchen and a centralised laundry, which was perfectly fine for individuals who only had to stay for two weeks.

Meals were to be prepared and distributed to the occupants of these units during quarantine, at government expense, but this is impractical when we are talking about 500 individuals who will be staying for a longer term. The cost alone would be astronomical.

The same applied to laundry services. Laundry was to be collected and washed in a central facility, but the logistics and cost of doing this for 500 longer term residents is also impractical.

Each of the residents would need to be able to do their own cooking and washing. Can you imagine the uproar if landlords did not provide a kitchen or laundry when renting houses or units? Why should we expect formerly homeless people to accept such conditions?

And it is a ridiculous notion that 500 people could somehow share the existing laundry and kitchen facilities. Given the nature of the planned clientele, there would be violence that could not be contained.

There is also the reality that many of the people going into these facilities will be suffering from varying degrees of trauma and even mental illness, something which was not as pronounced with travellers returning from overseas. It is a completely different clientele.

Support services would need to be set up, and these simply aren’t possible in the facility as it currently exists. Many of these people have lost motivation, and simply can’t look after themselves properly.

Some also have drug and alcohol problems, or have mental and physical disabilities, and again we would need support services for these people. This was not so much a problem for the expected quarantinees.

Pinkenba is also very remote, and there is very limited public transport or other services such as libraries, retail outlets, fast food establishments, grocery stores or entertainment venues.

None of these problems are insurmountable, and could be easily rectified. For example, Brisbane City Council have announced in the media that they will provide the public transport.

Unfortunately, Brisbane’s Lord Mayor has not actually gone through the proper processes of arranging this with the federal government, but is so far simply trying to score political points by issuing media releases. He needs to formalise an agreement with the federal government, who own the facility, instead of just talking about it.

Then we have the homelessness services in Brisbane who are also against the idea. Apparently they fear that government funding will be diverted from their organisations to the Pinkenba facility, and they may lose out. This is an extraordinary approach; they should be looking at ways they can work with the facility, rather than working against it.

The state government is being attacked by the media for their inaction, seemingly as part of a personal vendetta by some sections of the media against the current Premier. The state government do not own the facility, the federal government does. The media need to back off a bit, and suggest solutions rather than just try to score points.

The Premier seems to be doing what she can, but there are processes to go through, and building regulations that need to be followed. Kitchen and laundry facilities, for starters. Possibly, she could do a bit more, and expedite the process. Explaining the problems would be a good start.

The federal government are key here, and they need to move faster to ensure that the facility is upgraded. Temporary measures could be put in place for laundry, food supply and personal safety of the residents.

This has been done successfully in other places throughout the world, and even in Australia following natural disasters such as Cyclone Tracy. Thousands of people were left homeless in Darwin after the cyclone, and temporary measures were set up a lot quicker than what is happening in Brisbane today.

As far as maintaining order at the facility, drastic times call for drastic measures. Utilise the defence services, if need be. This has been done many times in similar situations in the past.

The three levels of government, the media and the NGOs need to approach the situation with a view to making it work, rather than worrying about political point scoring or government funding.

This is a crisis, but the people charged with dealing with the situation are playing political games rather than trying to solve the problem. The people of Australia expect more for Australia’s most vulnerable.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based Social Justice Campaigner, Writer, Teacher and Business Consultant. He has campaigned for social justice in Australia, promoted human rights in China and worked with the homeless in Honolulu. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Education and a degree in Management.