Action for More
Independence & Dignity in
Accommodation
1st Floor, Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne Vic
3000 Phone: 9650 2722 Fax: 9654 8575 Email: amida@amida.org.au Website: www.amida.org.au Inc No: A001608SV ABN: 32 993 870 380
Advocacy, Self Advocacy, Rights, Accessibility, & Community Living for People with a Disability
Joint Standing Committee on Transitional Arrangements for the
NDIS
AMIDA’s response August 2017
AMIDA (Action for More Independence & Dignity in Accommodation) is
an independent advocacy organisation which advocates for good
housing for people with disability. We provide advocacy to individuals, with priority given to people with an intellectual disability, and advocate for change in systems which prevent people from achieving good housing.
AMIDA acknowledges that people with disability have a right to a choice of with whom they live and where they live. Further, people with disability have a right to good quality housing which is accessible, affordable and
non-institutional. People with disability have a right to live in the
community with access to support to participate and have a good quality of life.
AMIDA strongly supports the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with a Disability and works to assert these rights and
community inclusion for people with a disability and supports people with disability as valued members of our community. AMIDA recognises that people with disability contribute to and develop our community.
NDIS promises yet to be fulfilled
The missing piece in the equation is that more housing is desperately needed. A major transition issue shaping up is the large numbers of tenants in group homes who are being given notice to vacate now. With funding in tenants packages and no
longer a need to maintain a good relationship with DHHS as a funding body, service providers are acting to evict difficult tenants. The intersection of the NDIA, new tenancy laws, reduction of protections and a huge unmet demand for appropriate housing has the potential to do significant harm to people with a disability. Incentives are not producing quick enough results to ensure the development of thousands of much needed appropriately small scale, affordable and safe dwellings. The Federal and State Government have responsibility for housing and have the risk of making some people with a disability homeless.
Transition to a market model
The NDIA will provide funding subsidies for Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) designed to stimulate growth in housing options. The NDIS is supposed to monitor the market’s response to the subsidies but it’s not clear what they can do if the response is too slow. The State Government should take advantage of subsidies to develop options now. The NDIS is absolutely consumed with the job of transitioning hundreds of thousands of people to the scheme and the CEO recently admitted they have been struggling under the weight of this workload. So it is not surprising that although it was envisioned that the NDIA would develop 500-900 new dwellings per year since July 2016, in fact there have been almost none since then.
Some NDIS participants are presented with a ‘false’ choice between service providers. Certain historical arrangements between housing and service providers mean that participants have little chance of changing services, even if they want to, especially when those same services are offering support with transitioning into the NDIS.
Real choice and the Government goal for “people with a disability to live an ordinary life, their way” can only happen if there is leadership provided to create these housing solutions now. The market may provide some solutions in the future but government has a leadership role in filling the gap when the market does not respond appropriately and in time with the full range of diverse options needed.
Markets may eventually respond but people with a disability are likely to suffer the consequence of this delay unless governments act to lead the way.
Increased housing demand
The NDIS interfaces with mainstream issues such as public/social housing provision. Since 2000 budgets for new social housing have decreased but the estimated need for affordable and accessible housing just for NDIS participants alone will be 12,000 new housing places (according to Disability Services Consulting) from a total of 28,000 current participants. There are already thousands of people with a disability waiting for accommodation with many people housed inappropriately with ageing parents, in SRSs and nursing homes in Victoria. Added to that, many people with a disability will not qualify for NDIS but will require affordable accessible housing. The
homelessness crisis currently facing Australia, particularly people with intellectual disability and/or mental illness, and more specifically, women with disabilities, including people experiencing violence, can only be tackled with substantial budgetary provisions for accessible and affordable housing. Emergency housing is currently the only solution being offered by state governments but this simply places a short-term Band-Aid on a problem that re-emerges 28 days later. Current public housing waiting lists in all states is excessive. In Victoria, there are approximately 30,000 people waiting for social housing.
We know that homelessness creates more trauma and poor physical and mental health, thus creating higher demand for disability support that could have been prevented.
Service interface issues
Advocacy groups including AMIDA are receiving increasing referrals from tenants, support co-ordinators and families of people in group homes who are being given temporary notice to vacate.
Case study: A support coordinator approached AMIDA about a client who was at risk of eviction from their supported accommodation. The accommodation provider said that the NDIS participant lacked adequate NDIS supports in their plan to manage behaviour. Crisis support coordination had not yet been granted, and the long, unspecified wait time for the NDIA to make a decision on a ‘review of a reviewable decision’ increased the risk of eviction for the client. Yet the support coordinator voiced concern that regardless of the outcome, the accommodation preferred to take on an “easier client.”
Even with NDIA plans including significant resources, service providers no longer feel obliged to house difficult clients. They are evicting people and the NDIS cannot stop this. The NDIS can fund supports but it doesn’t have control of housing resources. This is an emerging transition issue. The State government should co operate with OPA and the NDIA to identify emergency housing and short term accommodation to be used. If emergency housing remains unavailable the NDIA or DHHS could potentially fund emergency rental accommodation where appropriate. This is a systemic issue.
There is provision for crisis support co-ordination under the NDIS pricing policy to assist with managing the crisis, but applying for it and receiving approval all takes time, which generally isn’t available in a crisis. Provision of crisis support co ordination should be triggered and automatic if a person is in receipt of NDIS and receives temporary relocation notice. This co-ordinator would have responsibility for liaising with whichever authority is going to manage the emergency or short term accommodation or apply for emergency rental payments of no SDA accommodation is available.
This is not the time for the State Government to abandon its responsibility as the leader in planning and developing appropriate alternative specialist disability accommodation options and its responsibility as the provider of last resort. In Victoria, the DHHS should remain the provider of last resort at least until the supply of alternative SDA accommodation and public housing has greatly improved. They must also provide leadership in creating these accommodation options using NDIA subsidies.
Both Federal and State governments have a responsibility to fund housing solutions and the State government must remain the provider of last resort as neither the NDIA or markets currently have capacity to assume this role and there is potential for many people to become homeless resulting in significant harm to people with a disability.
Services for life
Once someone is made eligible for the NDIS, they in theory have the opportunity to stay in the NDIS, but in practice, people are pressured by services to go into aged care, even though disability is their primary condition, not ageing. In our experience people in SDA who turn 65 are often moved into aged care despite their needs being better met in Specialist Disability Accommodation. Ratio of staff to client in SDA is at most, 1 to 5 whereas in aged persons’ accommodation it can be 1 to 30, which reduces the opportunity for specialist disability needs to be met. Most people would not choose to lose their home and community, simply because they’ve been shifted from disability to ageing services, but this is in fact happening. Long leases in SDA must protect people from this and age or eligibility for aged care should not be a reason to give notice to vacate.
The Victorian Disability Act contains many protections and these must also be continued until such time as an equally protective system has been developed nationally.