Gympie Recovery Accommodation Park
The Gympie Recovery Accommodation Park provides temporary accommodation to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
In April 2022 the department leased a caravan park from the Gympie Regional Council to provide immediate to medium-term accommodation in response to the floods experienced in the region.
Since then, over 30 households have been supported through the park, with a place to live while they recover, and links to health, financial, employment and mental health support services.
Queenslanders who have lived at the park have moved on to buy new homes, return to their repaired homes, rent private properties and secure social housing.
While this is a temporary arrangement, residents at the park look out for each other, have made lifelong friends and built a strong community.
The State Government continues to work with the Gympie Regional Council to implement a Local Housing Action Plan for the region, which includes housing investments, new builds and extra support services for the community.
New residents are referred to the park through community providers in the Gympie region or through the Maroochydore Housing Service Centre.
To contact the team at the Gympie Recovery Accommodation Park email gympierap@chde.qld.gov.au
If you or someone you know needs housing help, contact your local Housing Service Centre, contact 13 QGOV (13 74 68) or call the Homeless Hotline on 1800 474 753.
Show transcript
February floods. We lost our home, which is just down the road, two storey house and the floods came halfway up the windows upstairs. A lot of people asked me what the Gympie recovery accommodation park is. It was a place we'd set up for people who were displaced by the floods in Gympie in 2022. We knew that the former Gympie caravan park had been abandoned and was sitting there vacant. The Government was looking for other options, more sustainable options. But the key thing was we could get people onto this site within a week with a little bit of work. If the park wasn't there, I don't know what I'd be doing right now. We'd be homeless, living out of our car. But thank God the park was there. A year on and things are changing.
It’s amazing watching the journey. We've seen individuals and households come into the park who have huge amounts of trauma. So much better. Bedrooms for everybody, a roof over a head, space for the animals. It was such a relief. And I think the best bit is that you know that you're making a difference and you can see that tangible change in people's lives.
I do get goose bumps. I feel a huge sense of pride from, you know, what the teams achieved. Us being here is about supporting them onto the next great thing that they're going to go on to. Accommodation, employment. There's a plan for the future with local government, the state government and various departments to say this can be a bit of a blueprint moving forward and how we can do this and support other communities. For the residents who have gone through this construction with us they've seen the park evolve, they've also felt part of it. So I think it's a pretty amazing place to work and I think it's just going to go from strength to strength. The park was definitely home for us while we were there, and now we've got our own place we can call home.