Come to Cunnamulla. Grey nomads invited to help ease critical outback housing shortage
Richard Dinnen - Queensland Editor |
It’s almost impossible to find housing in many rural Queensland towns, making it hard to attract teachers, doctors, and all the other kinds of workers communities need to survive.
In Paroo Shire, 750 kilometres west of Brisbane, they’re trying something new.
They’re inviting the tens of thousands of retired or semi-retired Australians travelling the nation’s highways in caravans and campervans to come to Cunnamulla, to help refresh the place and invest in its future.
The initiative is led by a New Zealander with a deep love for regional Australia, and a world shearing record among her many achievements.
Shelly Holland is the Shire’s economic development officer.
“I’d been looking at how we could target grey nomads to come in. They have incredible skills and experience, and they’re not necessarily retired.
“And we don’t have to worry about housing for them. They’ve got one on their back.”
Paroo Shire is home to 1550 people. The Shire covers 47,000 square kilometres in south-west Queensland, and Cunnamulla is its largest town.
Ms Holland said there’s a chronic housing shortage.
“The Council is in desperate need of housing, the hospital, our schools need housing for the teachers. The police, the community, we all need housing.
“In some cases, there’s up to a two-year waiting list.”
The idea was to make working in Cunnamulla for a few months part of the on-the-road life so cherished by Australia’s older travellers.
That way of life needs an income, and Ms Holland realised Cunnamulla could provide the answer.
“At the start of the year, I noticed that we had about 28 empty houses in town, not in a condition to be rented, needing some work.
“We had the idea to put the call out to these grey nomads to buy these old houses, do them up, and put them on to the rental market, or live there.
“Some of them only need a lick of paint. They’re on big blocks, with room for further development. The prices are low, and you can get a really tidy return.”
Ms Holland said there are houses in Cunnamulla priced as low as $37,000, with $200,000 buying “something very nice”.
She said there’s been good reaction to a Facebook page she launched a couple of months back to put potential buyers in touch with home owners.
“We’ve got people with their houses on their backs. They’ve got the skills, they’ve got a bit of coin in their pocket. They need an income, somewhere to park up.
“They can come and do up these houses. They can have the independence to go out and travel, and if they need, they can pop back to Cunnamulla where they’ve got a community welcoming them with open arms.”
