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Nick Reece likes to recount that he spent his first day as lord mayor volunteering at the Salvos, but now he is scrambling to repair his relationship with the Salvation Army and Melbourne City Mission after failing to deliver promised funding.
In an interview at the end of last year to mark one year as lord mayor of the City of Melbourne, Reece emphasised his close connection with the Salvation Army, which operates an outreach centre at the top of Bourke Street.
“On my first day as lord mayor, the first thing I did was go and do a shift at the Salvos,” Reece said. “I did that because I was actually scheduled to do it. But secondly, I wanted that to be a message to Melbourne about what I’m about and my values.”
Now the Salvation Army is questioning those values, pointing out that while Reece promised $6 million to the service and a further $3.2 million to Melbourne City Mission, neither organisation has received the promised funding.
Reece promised the homelessness funding as part of his campaign to be elected lord mayor in October 2024 and outlined the pledge in a written statement on his website, announcing he would “deliver $6 million to The Salvation Army’s Project 614” and “the Melbourne City Mission’s Frontyard Youth Services will receive $3.2 million”.
Both organisations are still waiting.
Since his election, Reece has been coming under increasing pressure over homelessness in the CBD.
Hani Akaoui, president of business group the Bourke Hill Precinct, said many businesses would like to see the Salvation Army move its community support and welfare hub from the top of Bourke Street.
“They could move their services to somewhere outside the city – there are a lot of places better suited to their mission than this building in the city,” he said.
Salvation Army leader Brendan Nottle said the Salvos had been left with broken promises.
“When I look at the way this has been handled, it feels like it’s been underhanded in the way they’ve gone about this,” he said. “There’s no other way of comprehending what’s taken place.”
After Reece was elected, Nottle asked him about the $6 million in funding, and Reece said to him: “No, no, I’m only one vote.”
Nottle told him this caveat was not mentioned when Reece spoke to him before the election or in his written election promise and queried whether at least the three other “Team Nick” members would vote in favour of the homelessness funding.
“We’ve gone backwards and forwards on that, but he’s never put a proposal up to council to vote on,” Nottle said.
Melbourne City Mission chief executive Paul Wappett said he had been excited about Reece’s election commitment of $3.2 million in funding for assertive outreach and peer workers for young people experiencing homelessness.
“Unfortunately, we’re yet to receive any of that funding, and at the same time youth homelessness is rising, making the need for beds and workers even more crucial,” he said. “Given our longstanding positive relationship, we remain hopeful the City of Melbourne will fund this commitment, which has enormous potential to make a real difference to the lives of young people experiencing homelessness.”
After receiving questions from this masthead, Reece published a notice of motion on the council’s website on Thursday afternoon proposing that the council increase food security initiatives in its budget from $250,000 to $500,000.
“I made a mistake by promising that the homelessness services would be delivered by the Salvation Army,” Reece told The Age on Thursday. “I should have been clearer that before public funds are allocated of that amount, that we need to go through a public tender process.”
Reece said Melbourne City Mission did not apply for funds under the tender process.
“The lord mayor made a clear commitment to fund youth homelessness action at the last election,” Wappett said. “Since then there has been no youth homelessness grant MCM could apply for.”
Reece said there had been “numerous reports” of trouble on the street at the top end of Bourke Street and Little Collins Street.
“Some of the shopkeepers, the traders, venue operators and local residents have safety concerns, and many of them believe that the Salvation Army contributes to some of the challenges in that part of the city,” Reece said. “We are in an ongoing dialogue with the Salvation Army to ensure that the service they provide is done in a way which doesn’t present any additional risks to people who run businesses or live at or visit that end of the city.”
Nottle said Reece rang him three times in a week telling him the Salvation Army needed to move from its Bourke Street location, which Reece denies.
“We’ve been here for 130 years, since 1895, and operated continuously during that time trying to do our best to care for the most marginalised in the city and across Melbourne, so we’re not moving,” Nottle said.
A park bench outside the Salvation Army’s building on Bourke Street became another bone of contention after Reece contacted Nottle and asked him how he would feel about removing the bench as there had been concerns raised about people gathering there.
Nottle said he would go to his team to discuss some alternatives to the bench, like seating in the laneway next to the Salvos’ headquarters.
Nottle said he rang the council the next morning at 7.30am to make an appointment to see Reece to talk to him about it, and the officer told him the bench had been removed at midnight.
“It was a devastating blow for some of the people that come in because it was their place, it was their gathering place,” Nottle said. “We hadn’t had time to inform them or give them a heads-up about what was going to happen.”
Reece said this “sounds like an operational decision” and questions should be directed to the council’s infrastructure and engineering team instead of him.
The Salvation Army received $438,000 a year in funding for 10 years from the City of Melbourne for its night safe space, which opens from 5pm to 7pm each evening and feeds and cares for about 200 people. The organisation is concerned that even that funding is under threat, as it will have to reapply during an upcoming tender process to continue delivering those services.
Reece’s notice of motion would provide a “bridge funding” grant of $109,000 to the Salvation Army’s Project 614 night safe space, allowing it to operate for another three months until the next tender.
It notes that the council has invested $2.3 million in an expanded safe space program delivered by VincentCare, Launch Housing and Ngwala Willumbong.
It states the council’s investment in homelessness support, which includes food relief, across all contracts over the next four years is about $10.2 million.
Nottle said the shift from the CBD raised concerns of a push to “literally starve out the most vulnerable from the city”.
However, he said he was encouraged by the new promise of bridging funding to go before the council next week, and he wanted to work together with Reece.
“It was deeply concerning that we may have been closing the night safe space at the end of September,” he said. “It’s given us some breathing space.”
Reece’s notice of motion will go before the council on Tuesday night.
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