Pillow talk: Lord Mayor calls out ‘absurd’ situation of Brisbane’s 500 empty beds
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has called for the Pinkenba Quarantine Facility to be opened as emergency housing, labelling it as absurd to be sitting empty during a housing crisis.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner wants the Pinkenba facility opened to the homeless Photo: ABC
His LNP administration will put a motion to council this week calling on the Federal Government to open the facility to the homeless.
It follows the probable closure of city backpacker operations which would take 110 beds from the inner city housing pool.
“Meanwhile, the Pinkenba facility has 500 empty beds that could be accessed by vulnerable people right now,” the motion reads.
“This administration first called for the quarantine facility to be repurposed on July 26, 2022, some 277 days ago.
“This council calls again on the Queensland and Federal governments to immediately make use of this facility and stand ready and willing to provide public services to the sire, incluing transport and a mobile library.”
Schrinner said the State and Federal governments were out of time and out of excuses.
“It’s simply absurd for the Federal Government to say it will allow for the facility to be used for emergency accommodation in a future natural disaster, but not during the current housing disaster,” he said.
The Federal Government has previously said the facility was too far away from support services to work as accommodation.
