Luke Quinn dreams of the day he can get his daughter back. First, he needs a place to live.<\/p>\n
Like most homeless residents of the Gold Coast, the 36-year-old has been moved on by the local council. He estimates that\u2019s happened up to eight times in the six years he\u2019s slept rough.<\/p>\n
These days, he keeps on the move, hiding out of public view to avoid the rangers. He said they often strike without warning, seizing an entire tent to take to the tip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no attempt at helping people better their situation. The light at the tunnel\u2019s end is not pointed out, you know?\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The Gold Coast, like Brisbane and Moreton Bay<\/a>, north of the city, continues to expand what it calls its \u201cenforcement-led\u201d homelessness<\/a> policy. Other councils, like Ipswich and Logan, have maintained a welfare approach.<\/p>\n For a year and a half, the state government has refused to endorse one approach over another<\/a>. But that could soon change.<\/p>\n A recent meeting of Gold Coast councillors heard the state\u2019s transport department had approached the Gold Coast council to negotiate an agreement for council rangers to expand their patrols to clear homeless people from state-owned land.<\/p>\n Advocates say the move is tantamount to endorsing the hardline approach and would deny homeless people one of the last refuges from rangers. Even worse, it could lock many of the most vulnerable into an endless cycle of punishment.<\/p>\n St John\u2019s Crisis Centre\u2019s general manager, Dianne Kozik, said the service had encouraged some of its homeless clients to move on to state land, such as the beachfront.<\/p>\n Often, it\u2019s the only place they can stay close to services without being moved on regularly. She said the state government agreement would deny them one more refuge, asking: \u201cWhere does the human go?\u201d<\/p>\n Council staff told councillors they were negotiating a \u201c100% cost recovery model\u201d and that the state would subsidise the entire cost of expanding the program.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is strictly a compliance conversation, so it\u2019s not a conversation about outreach or welfare services or housing pathways \u2026 (it\u2019s about) ensuring compliance with illegal camping and any other breaches of local law in those areas,\u201d the council\u2019s public safety compliance manager, Matthew Werner, said.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Department of Transport and Main Roads said it had started negotiating the agreement \u201cfollowing a high volume of complaints relating to anti-social behaviour and illegal camping at a number of sites across the Gold Coast\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAny individuals identified as experiencing homelessness have been offered support services with relevant state government agencies and specialist homelessness services,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n But homelessness academic Cameron Parsell said the state government\u2019s recent changes meant that was no longer true \u2013 not every homeless person was eligible for housing assistance.<\/p>\n \u2018Clear systems failure\u2019<\/p>\n The Liberal National party government has repeatedly tightened up eligibility requirements for housing assistance to the homeless.<\/p>\n Under its most controversial change, a tenant breached for bad behaviour three times in a year is banned from long-term social housing and state funding for temporary accommodation in hotels or motels<\/a>.<\/p>\n By March, the policy had seen 84 public housing tenants evicted, 495 issued a warning and 34 banned from returning for two years, according to a recent response to a question in parliament.<\/p>\n Cameron Parsell, a professor of social sciences at the University of Queensland<\/a>, studied a similar three-strikes policy implemented under Campbell Newman\u2019s government.<\/p>\n A tent city in Brisbane has come under scrutiny due to its visibility, size and proximity to a popular tennis centre. Photograph: Andrew Messenger\/The Guardian<\/p>\n He found the policy had led to the evictions of people for the very reasons they were eligible for assistance \u2013 drug use, mental illness, trauma, or long-term homelessness. The government had predicted precisely those problems, but instead of solving them, had punished the individual, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a real clear systems failure, and now there\u2019s just an additional layer in terms of the intervention into public spaces when people are evicted<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n