Meet Roxy, the homeless ‘nonna’ of Brisbane’s fastest-growing community

The nights are getting cold and 55-year-old Roxy is still under the bridge.

She would readily move to the never-used quarantine centre at Pinkenba, but politicians can’t agree on whether its doors should open to her.

While Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner continued to push the Pinkenba facility as accommodation for the homeless on Wednesday, Roxy did what she could to support others sleeping rough.

Roxy speaks for one of Brisbane’s fast-growing communities: the burgeoning band of tents and tarpaulins under the Go Between Bridge.

In March, about 20 to 30 people were living under the bridge.

By May, the population had doubled.

“I’m the ‘Nonna’ under here,” Roxy says. “We are a family.”

And like any good grandmother, she wants the family to thrive – even at Pinkenba.

“For the good, the bad and the sad. We all want to go together,” she says. “We think that is where we should go.”

It’s not even winter yet conditions are getting harsh.

Two people have died under the bridge in the past few weeks.

Young Teisha, a diabetic, passed away in her sleep, while a man took his own life. Both deaths were confirmed by the nearby Emmanuel City Mission.

“We make sure everyone has got blankets,” Roxy says, “but she was a diabetic, and we can only do so much.”

Teisha’s grandfather, who once worked at the adjacent Paul’s milk factory, visited the bridge after her funeral to offer clothes to the homeless, Roxy says.

“We were so devastated for him. He worked there for 25 years and his granddaughter passed away right under this bridge.”

On Tuesday, Schrinner declared “enough is enough”. He called for the Pinkenba centre to be used to house Brisbane’s homeless, something the federal government has already ruled out.

“Taxpayers paid for the Pinkenba facility,” he said.

“It’s simply absurd for the federal government to say it will allow the facility to be used for emergency accommodation in a future natural disaster but not during the current housing disaster.”

Last month, a spokeswoman for federal Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the facility was “too far from the additional necessary support services for such accommodation” and thus unsuitable.

But Micah Projects chief executive Karyn Walsh told 4BC that while the centre was isolated and might not suit everyone, she was “very much in favour of people doing the cost-benefit analysis of it”.

Under the bridge, Dylan Brisco says he would go to Pinkenba, and part of his $693 a fortnight JobSeeker allowance could help cover the cost.

“Affordability, I suppose, is the big question. I’m on the streets because it’s an easy compromise. I don’t have family or kids, and rent is just that much more.”

Nearby, Emmanuel City Mission provides food, clothes, toilets, showers and washing for those in need.

Cook Jill Dunning is a retired intensive care nurse and one of 20 or so volunteers helping the Merivale Street operation. Legs of lamb will become Irish stew for lunch.

The number of homeless people she cooks for has jumped dramatically.

“It was 80, then it was 100, then 120. Then, a few Mondays ago, I did 230,” Dunning said.

“When they stopped the COVID payments [in June 2022], there was a big jump then, and there was a massive jump since January.”