With social housing in short supply in Queensland, Judy Donald considers herself one of the lucky ones.
The 74-year-old moved into a new complex at Windsor in July after being on the waitlist for just over a year.
Donald had been searching for something more spacious and accessible to better meet her needs.
“It’s big, there’s plenty of room to turn in the wheelchair,” she said.
“The floors are non-slip, so it’s very safe.”
New data shows Queensland’s state government is struggling to keep up with demand.
Housing minister Sam O’Connor confirmed the state has a record waitlist.
”I can reveal today that waitlist is still going in the wrong direction,” O’Connor told 9News.
There were 52,000 people on the social housing waitlist at the end of June.
Two months later, that figure had jumped by more than 1800 people.
“That’s not good enough, and that’s why our build program is as big as it is,” O’Connor said.
“We need to turn this around and we only turn this around by getting more homes out of the ground.”
Opposition housing spokeswoman Meaghan Scanlon argued the state government had made it worse for homeless Queenslanders and people struggling to get into the housing market.
“They said that they were going to fix things,” Scanlon said.
With social housing in short supply, the state is seeing more people sleeping rough.
Nearly 20,000 Queenslanders engaged with a homelessness service during the month of July alone.
