A NEW village of hope is set to rise in Mt Martha, transforming a historic army barracks into six purpose-built homes for families escaping family violence and homelessness.
A $3m community-led housing project will take shape with charity Fusion Mornington Peninsula preparing to build The Village – a development designed to support young women and young families fleeing domestic and family violence.
Construction is expected to begin early to mid this year at the former Balcombe Army Barracks site in Mt Martha where Fusion already supports young people experiencing homelessness.
The project will deliver six standalone therapeutic family homes, a village centre with shared spaces and support rooms, onsite carer accommodation, and landscaped communal outdoor areas across the 2.5-acre property.
Fusion team leader Gemma Hughes said the project has been a decade in the making, but the scale of need had grown far beyond what the community first imagined.
“For the past ten years this was a dream in our community as there was no supported housing for young people with children. And now, we never imagined it would be at such a catastrophic need,” she told The News.
The peninsula now carries the highest rates of rough sleeping in Victoria, with youth and family homelessness rising sharply. Behind the figures are students, apprentices and young parents, many displaced by family violence, housing insecurity and complex trauma.
Hughes said most families Fusion supported were single mothers escaping violence.
“It began with young women. We have maybe one per cent of single fathers or probably two or three per cent which are partnered. Everyone else is a single women escaping family violence,” she said.
“Their choices are they remain with their violent partner because they have a roof over their head. They escape into homelessness because they can’t afford any other accommodation. Both situations will have their children removed by Child Protection. It’s real systematic injustice,” Hughes said.
The Village has been designed as long-term, trauma-informed supported housing not short-term crisis accommodation.
Families will live onsite alongside mentors and trained staff, led by Fusion’s families coordinator Jaclyn Jenkins, with access to parenting support, financial literacy programs, life skills training and therapeutic care.
Hughes noted “this is therapeutic supported housing for people who need to remember how to parent and feel safe. Crucially, the model keeps families together,” she said.
“If they’ve already been removed, Jaclyn and her team support them and work with Child Protection to have their children placed back in their care.”
The project also continues the long legacy of the Balcombe site, which has served the peninsula for more than 80 years from a World War II training ground, to hosting US Marines, to shaping more than 7500 young tradesmen through the Australian Army Apprentice School.
Today, that tradition of service is being renewed through a build powered by the local community. Businesses, trades, philanthropists and volunteers have already committed materials, funding, time and expertise.
While Fusion currently supports families using off-site properties provided by generous locals, Hughes said those arrangements fell short.
“Those houses, they’re not adequate enough due to the complexity of family violence and the isolation surrounding a woman who has escaped, so The Village is exactly that, it’s a village.”
As planning approvals and engineering reports are finalised, Fusion will continue operating its existing youth housing from the barracks, ensuring the site remains, as it has always been, a place where young people are protected, supported and prepared for the future.
First published in the Mornington News – 20 January 2026