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National

Clayfield retirement village to be converted into social housing, but previously announced Mount Gravatt project still lagging

An abandoned retirement village in Brisbane's north will be transformed into social housing in a bid to address Queensland's growing housing crisis.

The state government purchased the vacant complex in the popular suburb of Clayfield for $9.4 million.

Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch said work had already begun to get the 30 dwellings ready for people to move in.

"There is a bit of work to be done, of course, it is an older building," she said on Sunday.

"Some of the self-contained rooms were built back in the '80s ... We've got our team on that already."

Ms Enoch said the process of finalising planning regulations, upgrade works and procuring community housing providers and support services for the site would take place over the coming "weeks and months".

She said teams were working "as quickly as possible" to prepare the site, but it was unclear when people would be able to move in.

"This is a critical part of our solution to ensuring that we have more social homes in our stock going forward," she said.

"It was called upon us to be more innovative in the way that we purchase properties and the way that we build properties, and this is a great example of that."

The announcement comes more than four months after the government revealed it would convert unused student accommodation at Griffith University's Mount Gravatt campus into emergency housing.

When the plans were announced in September 2022, Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the government would "work quickly to organise a social and emergency housing provider to service the facility", but warned the refurbishment of the building would take some time.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Ms Enoch could not give a time frame on when the student accommodation may be ready for use.

"As you might appreciate, it was quite old student accommodation with some shared amenities," she said.

"We want to get it into a position where it can be utilised in a safe way to house people, and to get the right supports around them."

It has now been more than 100 days since the state government's housing summit, which brought together a range of stakeholders to address Queensland's housing availability crisis.

At the time of the event, there were more than 40,000 people on the social housing register.

The state opposition says with tens of thousands still on the waiting list, the conversion of the abandoned retirement village will do little to ease mounting pressure.

"To have another announcement of something that could happen in the future, after half a dozen announcements 100 days ago that still haven't delivered a roof, imagine how you feel being a Queenslander living out of a car knowing that," Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said.

"All we're seeing is a generation of working Queenslanders unable to live in a home and the most vulnerable falling further through the cracks. Neither of those are acceptable in a modern Queensland."

Mr Crisafulli said he supported more social housing initiatives, but called on the government to give an indication of when the dwellings would be ready for use.

"Good governments set timelines so they can be held accountable," he said.

"Every time you make an announcement and you don't actually deliver anything, it breaks the heart of someone who doesn't have a roof over their head."

Ms Enoch said the Palaszczuk government had delivered more than 4,000 new social homes to date, and was looking at "every available, workable option" to bolster housing availability for Queenslanders who need it.

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