NDIS Home and Living Supports: An Essential Guide for Support Coordinators

It is crucial that Support Coordinators have a clear understanding of NDIS home and living supports to best assist their clients. We break down what you need to know.

ByMary Ingerton, Managing Director at Support Coordination Academy.

The world of NDIS home and living supports is complex.

Among all the intricacies, nuances and acronyms, there is a lot to get your head around.

But having a clear understanding of this topic is essential to best support your clients with their home and living goals.

We’re here to help.

In this comprehensive article, we detail:

• NDIS home and living supports.
• What the NDIS funds.
• The vital role you play in helping your clients reach their goals
• What exists outside the NDIS sphere.

NDIS Home and Living Supports

To start, all NDIS home and living supports are detailed within the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits. 

Information about the type of support and when a participant could request it is found in the NDIS Operational Guidelines – Home and Living Supports.  

Here is a rundown of key NDIS home and living supports, which start with the least intensive through to support required for people with high and complex support needs. 

Personal Care Supports

• Assistance or supervision of personal daily activities within the participant’s home or in the community. Includes education or employment activities and support during holidays.
• To maximise independence and functional capacity, the supports are age and situation appropriate, and the least intrusive option compared to alternatives.
• Includes direct support for participants who require only up to six hours per day of additional support. For example, assistance with bathing, dressing or toileting.

Short Term Accommodation (STA)

• Funding can be used from the Core budget, up to 28 days per year for individuals or groups.
• This is not emergency accommodation or to be used for holidays. The aim is to help maintain a participant’s functional capacity, increase their independence through skill-building or help them meet new people.
• There are specific rules for children and those at risk of relinquishment, including respite for carers.

Medium Term Accommodation (MTA)

• Suitable if a participant is currently being supported by a mainstream service that they need to leave (e.g. from hospital) and have a long-term accommodation option to move in to, but the supports they need in their new home are not ready.
• An accommodation transition option generally available for up to 90 days but can be extended in special circumstances.
• Needs to be specifically funded in a participant’s NDIS plan and covers only the cost of accommodation during this period.

• Relates to custom-built changes to a participant’s home to increase access to and use of various areas of their home.
• Generally, allocated if a participant has safety concerns or difficulty moving around their home, requires modifications to meet personal care needs, can’t use rooms in their home, can’t pursue goals or requires changes so their carers can support them safely within their home.

Supported Independent Living (SIL)

• Generally, for participants with higher support needs (e.g. more than 6 hours per day including overnight support), who require significant assistance and/or supervision to complete daily tasks.
• Includes personal support to assist with or supervise completion of daily tasks to help a participant live as independently as possible.
• Generally, providers have a SIL house that they rent or own and provide rostered Support Workers to assist or supervise participants living in the accommodation, dependent on their needs.
• This support is available to participants living with others or those living alone who can’t reside with others due to the impact of their impairment and reduced functional capacity.

Individualised Living Options (ILO)

• The focus is on comprehensive and intensive planning to explore and design a long-term home and living option from the bottom up, empowering a participant to have choice and control around where and how they want to live.
• ILO funding can be approved in a participant’s NDIS plan to explore and design future home and support needs, and then a package of supports to enable a participant to live independently in their chosen home. This includes funding for monitoring and redesign if required.
• Funding works in collaboration with informal, community and mainstream supports.

Specialised Disability Accommodation (SDA)

• A range of specialised housing options (e.g. bricks and mortar) designed for participants with extreme functional impairment or very high supports needs.
• Does not include personal support within the home to complete daily activities (e.g. personal/SIL support would be funded separately based on the person’s complex support needs).
• For people needing to live by themselves or within a share home.
• Service providers must be registered to offer SDA.
• Participants need to pay rent and other daily living costs.

Younger People in Residential Aged Care

• The NDIS is committed to ensuring participants aged under 65 who live permanently in residential aged care have a choice of where they want to live.

What Does the NDIS Fund, and When?

The NDIS funds home and living supports for a participant based on evidence provided that the supports being requested:

• Directly relate to their impairment/s and significantly reduced functional capacity which create barriers to accessing and/or maintaining their home and living arrangements; and
• These home and living supports can’t be met through mainstream, community, informal or other supports.

Home and living supports could include:

• Supports that build capacity to live independently. For example, supports to improve a person’s living skills, money and household management, social and communication skills or behavioural management support.
• Home modifications to improve access within a participant’s home. This could include alterations to a participant’s own home or a private rental property and even social housing.
• Support with personal care to maintain health and hygiene, including help with showering, dressing and managing medications.
• Home help, including assistance with keeping the home or yard clean, doing laundry and preparing meals.
• Supports to assist a participant to find and maintain suitable housing.
• Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA).

These supports are for NDIS participants who:

• Have living arrangements that are no longer suitable for their disability-related needs.
• Have restricted or limited mobility and are restricted by their accommodation and ability to complete daily activities safely.
• Need specialist home and living solutions to provide suitable and safe care.
• Have somewhere to live, but their quality of life would be significantly improved by moving to more appropriate accommodation or accessing additional support in their home.
• Are currently in hospital and can only return to their home safely with additional supports or assistive technology/home modifications in place.
• Are living in temporary accommodation that is unsafe or unsuitable and cannot access alternative accommodation that meets their disability-related needs.

Home and Living Supports Outside the NDIS

Home and living supports are not just available within the NDIS.

Several options exist within the broader community that Support Coordinators can link participants to, depending on their support needs and situation. These include:

• Financial assistance, including bond loans and rental grants, no-interest loans for low-income renters or support to find and apply for a rental property.
• Private market: rental properties.
• Homeless and emergency accommodation services.
• The National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) for affordable rental properties.
• Social housing, including public housing and community housing programs.
• Tenancy advice programs.

Support Coordinator Responsibilities

As a Support Coordinator, you play an important role in helping your clients explore, source and maintain appropriate home and living supports. This includes.

Understanding Needs and Goals

It is essential that you understand a participant’s support needs and goals. This outcome is achieved by:

• Facilitating discussions with the participant and their family and support network to understand their housing preferences, support needs and long-term goals.
• This includes transition planning for future support needs. For example, transitioning from home to independent living due to having elderly carers. Or, if a long-term goal is to live independently within the community, identifying skills and supports the participant needs to pursue that goal.
• Considering factors such as where the person wants to live, accessibility requirements, the type of in-home support they will require, their location preferences, cultural needs and lifestyle choices.
• Whether the person requires additional supports within their own home to increase their independence, safety and access or if they need to find alternative accommodation to meet their unique support needs.

Understanding Home and Living Supports

You can assist participants to understand the supports available to them within their broader community. This includes:

• Providing information on different housing providers, including private rentals, social housing and other available housing options and supports.
• Connecting participants with other supports that can assist them to understand options available, such as disability housing specialists or tenancy advocates who can offer guidance and support to apply for public or community housing.

This research is critical when requesting home and living supports from the NDIS, as a participant must provide evidence that the supports they require cannot be met within other service systems outside the NDIS.

Support to Navigate NDIS Processes

It is also part of your role to help a participant navigate NDIS processes. This includes:

• Gathering necessary reports and assessments, such as Occupational Therapist reports, to aid requests for NDIS housing-related funding and to evidence disability-related support needs.
• Assist in preparing a Home and Living Supporting Evidence Form to provide the NDIS with information about a participant’s unique support needs.
• This form would accompany a Change of Situation if supports need to change within the period of a participant’s NDIS plan, or a Progress Report that identifies the participant’s future home and living support needs and goals.

Coordinating Trials and Transitions

Support Coordinators also need to consider how a participant will transition into their chosen accommodation option. This includes:

• Arranging site visits or trial stays, setting up Service Agreements and coordinating with providers to ensure they have a person-centred approach to setting up supports specific to the person’s needs.
• Ensuring ongoing support is in place to help a participant adjust to their new living arrangements and have a clear avenue to voice concerns.
• Reviewing a participant’s support needs to ensure the supports being provided continue to be appropriate and relative to any changes in their situation.

Support for You

NDIS home and living supports is a detailed topic.

If you have any questions about it or require other assistance as a Support Coordinator, contact us today.

Our NDIS experts are on hand to assist you and your clients.

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