Footscray’s most vulnerable were promised a ‘forever’ home. Now they have to move out

After years of homelessness and housing uncertainty, a group of men in Melbourne’s inner west thought they found their forever home at Foley House.

Bruce Rigby was moved from a psychiatric ward to an Abbotsford rooming house before the Footscray facility, where he felt safe in the knowledge he wouldn’t be asked to move on.

“I always found it reassuring that I could stay there as long as I wanted to,” said Rigby, who lived at Foley House for seven years.

Foley House is due to permanently close on June 30, which will mean dozens of high-needs men need to be rehoused. The decision the Salvation Army, which operates the facility, has blindsided residents and workers, who are branding it a betrayal and say it risks the men falling back into chronic homelessness.

The facility offers round-the-clock care for up to 45 residents, and there are currently about 30 men there living with complex psychiatric diagnoses, brain injuries, physical disabilities and drug and alcohol addictions.

The men are supplied with every necessity, from meals to toothpaste, leaving them with some money (beyond their $824 fortnightly rent) to spend on whatever they want.

A Salvation Army spokesman said the program ran at a loss for a decade, and the organisation absorbed the deficit to keep Foley House afloat. But “as the options for support funding narrowed, the needs of the residents broadened in complexity and the cost of running the program increased”, the spokesman said.

“The end of the current service on June 30, 2026 is subject to the relocation each resident,” he said.

It’s cold comfort for residents and staff as they work to rehouse the men. The facility’s looming closure comes weeks after the Salvation Army launched the state government-funded Lighthouse Cafe, which is within 10 minutes’ walk of Foley House.

The opening of the controversial cafe was spruiked as the “missing piece of the puzzle” for Footscray, specifically intended to act as a triage connecting people to local services. But critics note the irony when the Foley House program is being stripped from the community.

The state government approached the Salvation Army to run the cafe.

“The cafe was a bit of a betrayal,” said a Foley House worker who asked not to be named, fearing it would damage their job prospects.

“I’m not against the idea as a way of giving people somewhere to access support, but it’s just shit timing in that they’re rolling that out and unravelling us at the same time.

“Where are the social workers there going to refer people to?”

The Salvation Army’s Victorian homelessness spokesma