Load a block in template?
Maybe I am missing something about your question, but it seems that one of three basic techniques should work for you.


If you just need information from a block in the footer, place the block in the footer region and style it with css so that it is positioned where you need it to be.
If you need to adjust the information in a block (e.g. to place a block on a page twice), use a render hook.  c.f. The Scary Render Array.
If you just want to put some custom content + php in your template after the footer, you can just plop it down there.  If you have code in your block function that needs to be called in two locations, factor it into its own function, and call it from the template and from the block function.


It feels wrong to call the block api from a template file when one of the above more conventional techniques should work just as well.