The waiting list for public housing in Cairns has climbed past 2,800 households, according to figures held by the Queensland Department of Housing as of June 2026 — and for many residents already stretched thin by rising grocery bills and stagnant wages, the number is not abstract. It is their life on hold.
Nationally, Australia's property market is showing signs of softening, with capital city prices beginning to plateau after years of gains. That shift has not trickled down into the rental market in Far North Queensland with anything like the same speed. In Cairns, the median weekly rent for a three-bedroom house sat at $580 in the June quarter — up roughly 18 per cent compared with two years ago, according to data from the Real Estate Institute of Queensland's regional snapshot.
A Suburb Where Everyone Knows Someone Who Has Left
Manunda, a working-class neighbourhood roughly three kilometres west of the Cairns CBD along the Sheridan Street corridor, has long housed a mix of Pacific Islander families, First Nations residents, and low-income earners. Community members there describe a suburb in slow churn. Families who have rented on the same street for a decade are being moved on when leases expire, only to find that replacement rentals — when they exist at all — demand incomes their casual or part-time work cannot support.
The Cairns Community Legal Centre, which operates out of Grafton Street in the city, has reported a marked increase in tenancy-related inquiries through the first half of 2026. Staff there say callers frequently describe receiving lease non-renewal notices without explanation, then being unable to find alternative accommodation before their exit date. The Centre has been running fortnightly housing clinics since February, a program it expanded from monthly sessions to keep pace with demand.
For Pacific Islander families in particular — many of whom have large extended households and rely on informal support networks to make rent — the situation is compounded by a shortage of larger dwellings. Four- and five-bedroom rentals are rarely advertised on the Cairns market, and when they are, they tend to attract applicants from higher income brackets first.
Services Under Pressure, Advocates Calling for Action
Cairns Regional Council acknowledged the housing pressure in its May 2026 council meeting, with the item sitting on notice paper for several weeks before receiving brief discussion. The council does not directly manage public housing stock — that responsibility falls to the state — but councillors representing Division 9, which covers parts of the northern beaches, have flagged that homelessness and overcrowding are showing up as downstream issues in community centre usage and local school enrolments.
Anglicare North Queensland, which runs emergency housing support programs from its Mulgrave Road office in Westcourt, says demand for its short-term accommodation brokerage service has exceeded capacity since at least March. The organisation's 2025 Rental Affordability Snapshot found that of all rental listings in the Cairns region on one representative weekend, fewer than four per cent were affordable for a single adult on the minimum wage.
The state government's Housing Investment Fund, announced in the 2025-26 Queensland Budget, committed $2 billion statewide toward social and affordable housing construction over five years. Cairns advocates say that timeline is too slow for families making decisions right now about whether to couch-surf with relatives or sign a lease they genuinely cannot afford.
For residents navigating the current market, the Cairns Community Legal Centre urges anyone facing eviction or lease non-renewal to contact their tenancy advice line before vacating — on 07 4031 7688 — and notes that tenants have rights around notice periods that landlords do not always communicate clearly. Anglicare North Queensland's housing brokerage can be reached through its Westcourt office and takes referrals directly from individuals as well as community organisations. The next fortnightly housing clinic at the Legal Centre runs on Tuesday, July 14.
