Date: Friday 21 June to Saturday 22 June 2019
Time: 3pm to 3pm (Community meal at 6:30pm Friday night, policy forum at 10am on Saturday, 22 June)
Location: Post Office Square, Brisbane City

Roughly 10 000 Brisbanites are currently homeless.

Over 32 000 Queenslanders are on the public housing waiting list (including 12 500 children) but the Queensland Government is only building 500 homes per year state-wide.

The federal government encourages profiteering from housing through tax subsidies for property investment, but refuses to increase welfare payments or the minimum wage. Investors leave new apartments sitting empty rather than renting them out to low-income families.

Meanwhile Brisbane City Council discourages rough sleepers from using central public spaces, and supports profit-driven gentrification that drives up land values and rents.

First Nations peoples, domestic violence survivors, and those with severe mental health issues are experiencing particularly high rates of homelessness.

All levels of government must do more to challenge the treatment of housing as a for-profit commodity, and provide stable housing for the growing number of people who’ve been priced out of the private market.

We’re holding a People’s Sleepout on Friday, 21 June, the day after the annual CEO Sleepout. We’ll be setting up camp from 3pm in Post Office Square, with a community meal around 6:30pm, and hanging out until the following morning.

Rather than raising money for temporary shelters, food vans and toiletries, we’re calling for major policy reforms that will go to the heart of the problem, especially an increase in public housing.

We demand:

- Significant increase in the number of good-quality public housing dwellings
- Stronger renters rights, including protections against unreasonable rent increases and unjustified evictions
- Increase Centrelink payments and the minimum wage
- Stop supporting private for-profit mega-developments and start supporting non-profit housing solutions
- Vacancy taxes on empty buildings and abandoned blocks of land
- More funding for housing support workers and social services to support vulnerable people to remain housed


Ending homelessness saves governments money. Building high-quality public housing that’s dispersed throughout the city (rather than concentrated in one area) also creates jobs.

By occupying space in the centre of the CBD, we hope to make visible the severity of the housing affordability crisis, while directly asserting the right to public space and challenging the ongoing persecution of rough sleepers by police and city council.

This event is taking place on the unceded sovereign lands of the Jagera, Ugarapul and Turrbal peoples. We acknowledge and pay respects to the elders and rightful owners of this place, and we are particularly mindful that discussions about rights to space and 'occupying' as a means of political resistance occur in the context of an ongoing colonial occupation of Aboriginal land...

Program: 

Friday 21 June
3pm onwards         Attendees start arriving for camp set up

6:30pm              Community meal

Saturday 22 June
9:30am                    Open Mic

10am - 11:30am     Community Policy Forum: Housing and Homelessness

12:30pm - 2pm       Right to Peaceful Assembly - Open Meeting & Community Meal

2pm - 3pm               Packdown

What to bring (if you can): 

• Warm Clothing
• Tent
• Sleeping bag
• Blanket
• Pillow
• Food to share
• Musical Instruments