My neighbours warned me not to write about my suburb. They don’t want it ruined

July 27, 2026 — 5:00am

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Employment as a youth worker in Fortitude Valley during the 1990s taught me something important.

Many of the young people who came through our homelessness service had never known home as a safe place. Family wasn’t where they found security. Instead, they survived in squats, refuges and on the kindness of each other.

Witnessing that changed me. It made me realise that having somewhere to belong is not a luxury, it’s one of our deepest human needs.

Not long afterwards, one of my colleagues invited a group of us to have lunch at an old Queenslander he was house-sitting in Anstead.

“Where’s Anstead?” someone asked.

Nearly 30 years later, I’m often asked the same.

Tucked into Brisbane’s western fringe, between Brookfield, Moggill and the Brisbane River, Anstead is one of the city’s smallest suburbs.

On the traditional lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people (the bora ring at Moggill a precious reminder), it was once affectionately described as the “cheap side” of Brookfield and Pullenvale. These days, land in Anstead, like everywhere else, is not........

© Brisbane Times