A specialist supported accommodation facility in Melbourne’s east has been forced to shut its doors after repeated findings of residents with dementia being restrained, left in squalid conditions and suffering untreated wounds.
Greenslopes Supported Residential Service (SRS) in Templestowe Lower housed up to 40 vulnerable people, many living with cognitive impairment or mental health conditions. Inspectors discovered elderly residents tied to chairs with straps, sleeping on mattresses soaked in bodily fluids, and left with infected pressure sores. One woman was confined to her room for six weeks, reportedly for her own protection from another resident.
Concerns about the facility were first flagged in March 2023, but it took until December 2025 for Victoria’s Social Services Regulator to revoke its registration. Operators were given until 5 March 2026 to relocate residents. When a last-minute legal challenge failed, administrators from Ernst & Young took control of the site, changed the locks after the owner refused to leave, and began the difficult task of finding new homes for the remaining residents.
Social Services Regulator Jonathan Kaplan emphasised that resident safety came first. He said dedicated support teams had been assigned to help those still at the facility transition to new accommodation of their choice, acknowledging the distress a move can cause but stressing it was necessary to protect their welfare.
During a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing on 2 March, more than 2000 pages of evidence and hours of recordings were presented. The tribunal rejected the operator’s bid to delay closure, citing “repeated non-compliance” that posed a significant risk to the public.
Authorised officers documented a litany of failures during unannounced visits between March 2025 and February 2026. These included paramedics treating a resident with a severely infected bed sore after her daughter found her in a soiled incontinence pad with no staff available to change dressings, a man strapped to a chair on two separate occasions, residents with advanced dementia left slumped in chairs or calling for help without access to a call bell, and communal toilets caked in faeces. Mattresses were found upside down and stained, incontinence aids were left on the floor, and basic maintenance issues such as broken bathroom fixtures and pervasive odours went unaddressed for months.
The facility had received multiple compliance notices dating back to 2022 for inadequate cleaning, incomplete medication records, insufficient staffing rosters and failure to conduct proper criminal history checks. Greenslopes director Preet Kaur rejected the findings outright, insisting she had evidence disproving the regulator’s claims and vowing to fight the decision through the tribunal and higher courts.
The case has shone a spotlight on Supported Residential Services (SRS) in Victoria and their equivalents, Supported Residential Facilities (SRF) in South Australia. Unlike mainstream residential aged care homes, which operate under the federal Aged Care Act 1997, receive government subsidies and are subject to rigorous national quality standards and frequent audits, SRS and SRF facilities sit outside that framework.
These services are privately run and largely self-funded. Residents, or their families, pay a weekly fee that covers accommodation, meals and a basic level of personal support. There is no requirement for an Aged Care Assessment Team approval, and the facilities are not subsidised by the Commonwealth. Regulation falls to state governments, in Victoria under the Social Services Regulation Act and in South Australia under the Supported Residential Facilities Act 1992, with updated regulations in 2024.
An anonymous nurse who spoke to HelloCare explained the consequences of this lighter touch approach: “SRS in Victoria and SRF in South Australia are not regulated like normal aged care homes. People simply pay their weekly fee. For this reason, they are not under the same scrutiny in regards to checks. Some of these providers would be lucky to be checked once every five years.”
Advocates have long warned that this model leaves residents exposed. Mental Health Legal Centre chief executive Charlotte Jones said her organisation raised serious concerns about Greenslopes more than three years ago and had highlighted similar problems across the SRS sector during the Disability Royal Commission. “We were extremely concerned about what was happening and particularly about the owner’s behaviour,” she said. “I’m horrified. This is modern Melbourne. People who go into these places every week report these problems. And as far as they are concerned, they do not see any change.”
Victoria’s Public Advocate Dan Stubbs noted that Community Visitors routinely flag unsafe bathrooms, unhygienic conditions and a lack of dignity in SRS facilities. He welcomed the regulator’s action but called for stronger, formal information-sharing arrangements so problems can be escalated faster. “These are not isolated problems, they are systemic,” he said.
The Social Services Regulator, which replaced the former Human Services Regulator in July 2024 and now oversees hundreds of services, said it had worked with Greenslopes through education, compliance notices and enforcement for more than a year before taking the drastic step of revocation.
Despite repeated opportunities to improve, the provider failed to meet basic obligations.
As the remaining residents are relocated and the operator prepares its appeals, the Greenslopes case has renewed calls for tighter oversight of SRS and SRF facilities across Australia.
This is appalling but what is even more appalling is it took years for regulator to act. This is only 1 of many in exactly the same state. People with no qualifications or experience running these places merely to make money from vulnerable people. Since COVID Victoria has lost the plot allowing anyone to run aged care, SRS’s, mental health accommodation etc etc. Ask any worker out there, they will back me on this issue100%.
What a great AI generated image that is!!!. There is simply no way this premises was ever presented in the condition now being described. My relative has been in care there for the past year, and at no point was the facility in a dirty or squalid state.
My relative was cared for above and beyond expectations, with regular medical visits and carers providing support 24/7. The level of care and attention given was consistent and compassionate.
The families of residents who had been living there for much longer were absolutely devastated by what has happened.
As part of the process of finding a suitable facility last year, we undertook careful research with the guidance of health professionals, and this facility ranked as one of the better options available. The kitchen was always spotless, and while residents, like in many places, sometimes had the usual complaints about food due to personal taste, overall they appeared settled and well looked after.
If the issue was genuinely one of compliance, then residents should have been relocated temporarily while the issues were addressed, or an urgent change in management should have been implemented. Neither of those things appears to have occurred.
That raises serious concerns that this may be less about resident welfare and more about a redevelopment or upgrade process that could ultimately result in residents being charged significantly more. What is most disappointing is the manner of the closure, which feels deeply unfair, distressing, and potentially unlawful