Father Chris
Riley

Father Chris Riley devoted his life to a single conviction: that there is no such thing as a child born bad, only circumstances that rob young people of the chance to become who they are meant to be. From that belief, he built one of the most consequential youth welfare organisations in Australian history — starting with a single food van in Kings Cross and growing it into a network of services that touched more than 150,000 young lives.

Born Christopher Keith Riley on 24 November 1954 in Echuca, Victoria, he grew up on a dairy farm and was still a teenager when he saw the 1938 film Boys Town and resolved to become a priest who worked with society's most forgotten children. He graduated from the Salesian school at Rupertswood in 1973, entered the Salesian Order and was ordained a priest in 1982. After working as a teacher, youth worker, probation officer and residential carer, he became principal of Boys' Town in Engadine, Sydney — a role that showed him both the depth of need among young Australians and the inadequacy of existing responses to it.

In 1991 Father Riley left Boys' Town and drove a food van into Kings Cross. That single act — feeding homeless teenagers on the street — was the beginning of Youth Off The Streets. Over the next three decades, what started as one man and one van became a national charity employing more than 220 staff, running over 35 programs in New South Wales and Queensland, and providing crisis accommodation, counselling, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, accredited high schools, and First Nations support to around 1,600 young Australians each year. He famously did not distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor — he simply showed up, every time, with warmth and without judgement.

NSW Premier Chris Minns described him as "a visionary" who proved "that with compassion and opportunity, young lives can be transformed." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had "a heart as big as the country." In 2006 Father Riley was made a Member of the Order of Australia and awarded the Human Rights Medal. In 2010 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Western Sydney. In 2012 he was named NSW Australian of the Year. He stepped back from his role as CEO in 2020 after nearly thirty years at the helm, and retired from the board in 2022 as his health declined. He died peacefully at home in Sydney on 1 August 2025, aged 70.