Melbourne Salvos cafe closes as demand exceeds capacity

A social service cafe in Melbourne's inner west has closed its doors five months after it opened, as its operator scrambles to find a new location.

The Salvation Army's Lighthouse Cafe opened in May to provide vulnerable Footscray community members with free meals and connection to homelessness, mental health, and drug and alcohol support.

The Salvation Army said the service was relocating due to high demand, which rendered the current space unsuitable.

"We've been overwhelmed by the need," The Salvation Army Melbourne Commanding Officer Major Brendan Nottle told 774 ABC Melbourne Breakfast.

"We're seeing 170 people on average a day come through that cafe, and initially we were expecting 50 to 60.

"Even in the first couple of weeks we were thinking, 'We've got a problem here', because it's one single room and it wasn't big enough to accommodate the number of people coming through."

A man who used the service, who wanted to be known as PJ, said he and others were "pissed off and angry" the doors had shut.

"It's just wrong, man," he said.

"Everyone here is malnourished."

He said everyone loved the cafe.

"The meals were beautiful, the staff were beautiful."

He said he was upset by the lack of follow-through for the service.

"We were promised a long-term cafe," he said.

"They don't follow-through … they just disappear."

Search for new home for Lighthouse in Footscray

The project had so far received $350,000 from the state government, with another $576,000 earmarked.

Major Nottle said while a new location had not been found, The Salvation Army was committed to keeping the service in Footscray, where the organisation has had a presence since 1887.

"We're relocating to another site that will be more suitable to the work we want to do, not just in terms of being able to accommodate more people in the cafe, but also having additional spaces where we can co-locate with other services," Major Nottle said.

He acknowledged there had been concerns from surrounding businesses around safety.

"Have there been a couple of complaints from neighbours? Yes, there have," he said.

"But for every complaint there's been three or four really positive comments from people who are overwhelmed emotionally because of the support they were receiving."

The temporary closure comes as The Salvation Army works to wind down Foley House, a long-term residential facility that has provided beds for homeless men since 2013.

The Salvation Army has said the accommodation would close once the final resident "has been matched with safe, suitable and affordable accommodation".

"Foley House has, due to the complexity of the residents, become a disability-like accommodation without access to any form of accommodation funding other than The Salvation Army itself," the organisation said at the time.

Footscray Community Response's Shifrah Blustein said the closure of the cafe would make people's lives harder.

"Having somewhere you can go for a meal, to not be cold or feel the heat from outside is something, but, at the end of the day, these people need to be supported into housing. 

"Providing a few outreach workers or a cafe, it isn't a replacement for housing.

"The community just wants some very, very basic services to be delivered to people doing it so tough on the streets who are being blamed and dehumanised for every social problem under the sun in Footscray.

"This was one tiny measure to address that, in a very sort of superficial way, I guess, to have a place where people could be off the street, be fed, and they can't even sustain that."

The Salvation Army said an interim "mobile and on foot" service would start later this month to provide food relief and connection with support services.