System failing Nambour; Bureaucratic control ‘prevents local solutions’ as risks increase

Homelessness advocate Abigail with Nambour safety petitioner, Helen Tagg at Quota Memorial Park this week - “We can win as a community, but we have to keep fighting.”

by Cameron Outridge

Two Nambour women working on local solutions to the homelessness crisis say a lack of urgency and ongoing bureaucratic control is putting people at risk as conditions worsen.

Homelessness advocate Abigail, who supports people sleeping rough, and Nambour local and mum Helen Tagg, who recently led a 1600-signature community petition calling for urgent action and a locally driven plan, met this week beside Petrie Creek only metres from long-term encampments.

They said the situation has remained unchanged months after the highly promoted Nambour Homelessness Response Forum in August, with people still sleeping in unsafe conditions as the wet season approaches.

At Quota Memorial Park, construction is underway on a multi-million-dollar fish ladder right beside tents and makeshift shelters. “It is heartbreaking,” Abigail said. “They can find millions for a fish ladder, but not money to fix the Fred Murray Building so people have somewhere safe to sleep. Where are the priorities?”

Both women said the solution was not “more planning or more meetings” but lay in letting the community take the lead. They say Nambour already has people with the skills to act immediately, including those who could set up safe, army-style accommodation within 48 hours if State and Council would allow locals to take responsibility instead of controlling the process from above.

Mrs Tagg said her criticism was directed at the system, not individuals. She said some representatives have made efforts to help, but initiatives still stalled once they hit bureaucracy.

“We have the capability here in Nambour, but State and Council keep the control at the top and we are forced to wait while decisions are made without us,” she said.

“Meanwhile people are still living beside a flood-prone creek.”

She said she developed a community-led action plan after months of watching responsibility pushed back and forward between governments.

“Council said it was the State’s problem and the State said Council controls the parks. So I said ‘this is what you can do and you need to work together’,” she said.

“I am glad they were willing in principle, but the process has been painfully slow and nowhere near the urgent response we were told was coming.”

She said the current structure was preventing local solutions from being delivered.

“State and Council have not actually let us solve the problem. They take our ideas, then decide what we are allowed to work on and only consult us after decisions have been made. I’ve been told there is another group inside Council working on this, that we have never even met, so the community is not included in the decisions that count.

“Council meets with State without us and we only hear results afterwards. The council staff who work with us have been kind, but the system above them keeps all the power. They are designing solutions for a community they do not understand. It does not feel like partnership. It feels like being managed from a distance.”

This experience reflects comments made by Sunshine Coast Council CEO John Baker at a recent Nambour Chamber of Commerce meeting, where he said much of Council’s consultation in the past was not meaningful.

“I have observed lots of consultation that is not meaningful and I think it is more than frustrating. It is disrespectful,” the CEO said.

He also acknowledged that the organisation often worked for itself rather than serving the community.

Both women said it had never been safe or appropriate for people to live in tents near schools, playgrounds and a flood-prone creek. They rejected the idea that compassion and public safety were in conflict.

“Leaving people to sleep beside a creek that floods is not compassion,” Mrs Tagg said. “It is neglect.”

Abigail, who has lived experience of housing insecurity, said new arrivals to town had made conditions more volatile for everyone, including long-term homeless locals who watched out for each other. She said it was important not to paint all homeless people with the same brush.

“Most of the homeless community here still look out for one another and for the wider community,” she said. “It’s only a small minority who cause problems – and sometimes it’s not even the homeless in the parks. Some local residents and transient visitors add their fair share to the trouble. But some newcomers have been aggressive. Some of the long-term homeless here have been assaulted by new homeless arrivals who are not local.”

Both say State and Council reluctance to hand decision-making to the community had cost time and trust.

“Our town loves its people,” Abigail said. “If they gave us the funds and the permission to run it, we would fix this faster than any forum could.”

Both women said they cared deeply about Nambour and its residents but believe morale is low and the town needs a win. Mrs Tagg said the community was ready to turn things around if it was finally given the space to act.

“We can win as a community, but we have to keep fighting,” she said. “It is about staying united and standing with each other.”