{"id":70784,"date":"2026-08-13T02:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T02:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/70784\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T02:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T02:45:11","slug":"city-of-moreton-bay-council-to-turn-wyllie-park-into-a-free-homeless-campsite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/70784\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Moreton Bay council to turn Wyllie Park into a free homeless campsite"},"content":{"rendered":"

A park in Moreton Bay will soon become a free, legal campsite for people experiencing homelessness under a 12-month trial by the local council.<\/p>\n

Wyllie Park in Petrie is already an overnight camping area with toilets and refuse facilities, and will offer 60 free sites for those who cannot afford standard rent or caravan park fees.<\/p>\n

The Moreton Bay Council says the precinct will be monitored by CCTV cameras and round-the-clock security.<\/p>\n

In March, the Supreme Court ruled the local council violated the human rights of homeless campers when it evicted them from public parks in 2025.<\/p>\n

Homeless campers will have access to toilets, bins, a barbecue, and running water at the park.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Peter Flannery says the camp is not a replacement for social housing. (612 ABC Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Speaking to Ellen Fanning on 612 ABC Brisbane Drive, Mayor Peter Flannery says the trial will offer a centralised location where support services can easily support rough sleepers.<\/p>\n

“Rather than being scattered across our whole city, let’s get them into one location where they can be supported and have some safety,” Cr Flannery said.<\/p>\n

“We did learn from the court case that we shouldn’t have asked them to move to somewhere when there was nowhere else to go, so this is providing that somewhere else to go.”<\/p>\n

Bandaid solution<\/p>\n

Founder of Nourish Street, Beau Haywood, welcomes the announcement, but has genuine concerns about the trial.<\/p>\n

Mr Haywood says he is unsure how the trial will address the complex needs of people experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

“Homelessness is not a single group of people,” he says.<\/p>\n

“You could potentially have families with children, elderly people, people experiencing significant mental health issues, people battling addiction, vulnerable women all staying in one area.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Beau Haywood’s charity feeds homeless people across Moreton Bay.\u00a0 (612 ABC Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Mr Haywood says his charity, which provides essential supplies to rough sleepers in the area, was not consulted by council.<\/p>\n

“We’re one of the largest [charities] in this area. So, it was a bit disappointing once again that no-one was really sort of spoken to about what was happening or how it was going to be addressed,” he says.<\/p>\n

“I just sort of wonder if this is another council knee-jerk reaction.”<\/p>\n

Mr Haywood also raised concerns that the park limit of 60 sites will not be enough to support the region’s accommodation needs.<\/p>\n

Nourish Street’s most recent food distribution run in Moreton Bay visited 174 sites.<\/p>\n

“Simply providing somewhere for people to pitch a tent without adequate support, security and pathways into permanent housing risks creating another problem, whether they are solving one we already have.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A park in Moreton Bay will soon become a free, legal campsite for people experiencing homelessness under a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[97193,99,3471,23225,15789,3470,97192,61557],"class_list":["post-70784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-beau-haywood","tag-brisbane","tag-city-of-moreton-bay","tag-homeless","tag-moreton-bay","tag-nourish-street","tag-peter-flannery","tag-petrie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}