New project to delve into NDIS housing options

The NDIS Housing Pathways Project is co-funded by the Melbourne Disability Institute and the Brotherhood of St Laurence and will look at the housing options of the remaining 94 percent of NDIS participants ineligible or not in Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA).

The project will explore seven interconnected housing options; new SDA, existing SDA, non-SDA supported accommodation, social housing, private rental, in own home and in the family home.

Joseph Connellan, Senior Manager – Housing at the Melbourne Disability Institute, who will lead the project says “The advent of large scale, portable and adequate support under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is creating an unprecedented level of demand for housing for people with a disability.”

The Housing Pathways Project will produce an online platform open to people with disability, service providers and Local Area Coordinators (LACs)

Over seven months the project will aim to identify and review existing information, services and research, produce resources in a variety of formats, distribute the resources to a range of groups beginning with LACs, develop and pilot training packages and community-based methodology to support the housing of the NDIS participants in their community and promote research opportunities around NDIS and housing.

According to a 2015 Final Report by The Disability Housing Futures Working Group the estimated national unmet need in affordable housing was between 35,000 to 55,000 NDIS participants.

“We need both robust and useful information as well as the options they describe to be available for people with a disability to have the best housing choices,” Mr Connellan says.

The Brotherhood of St Laurence is contributing resources to the project with the training package to be piloted with their LAC staff.

Participants are encouraged to ask any housing-related questions here, to be answered within the project, with some useful resources and information available now.