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Housing includes things like making sure you have a home to live in, that suits your needs. It could be social housing, including public and community housing.
Community infrastructure means things like public buildings and public places.
The housing and community infrastructure system includes:
social housing authorities
government agencies responsible for affordable housing and homelessness
local councils and other governments responsible for town and city planning.
When we say housing, we mean the building itself, like a house or apartment. This doesn’t include the supports you can get in your home, like support workers. For more information on the supports you can get in your home, check out our guidelines for home and living supports .
When we say reasonable adjustment, this means reasonable changes that services need to make so they are accessible for people with disability.
There are very limited situations where the NDIS funds housing. The housing and community infrastructure system is primarily responsible for housing and homelessness services.
What is the housing and community infrastructure system responsible for?
Housing and accommodation for people who need it – this includes making sure all Australians, including people with disability, have access to accessible, affordable and appropriate housing
Routine rental tenancy support, such as helping you with any questions or issues about your property, and helping you work with your landlord
Making sure new social housing has Livable Housing Design features where possible
Supports and outreach for people who are homeless, or to prevent people from becoming homeless
Emergency and long-term accommodation for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness
Improving community facilities, public buildings and public places by making them more accessible for people with disabilities – for example, through zoning laws and city planning, building modifications and reasonable adjustments.
Examples of supports the housing and community infrastructure system should provide
Social housing, including making social housing suitable for people with disability through home modifications
Making sure community infrastructure is accessible to you, such as disability parking or disabled toilets
Intensive case coordination that’s mainly related to housing supports
Housing support services to help with the cost of renting or buying a home, such as rental bonds, mortgage relief and home buying assistance
What are we responsible for?
The NDIS is responsible for some home and living supports that may be required because of your disability support needs. These include:
Supports to help you live independently in the community. For example, to build:
your daily living skills to manage your household
your capacity to manage money and keep a rental agreement
your social and communication skills including behaviour supports.
Support to help you find and maintain suitable housing, where this is required due to your disability support needs
Home modifications for private dwellings – if you own or rent your home and it is not social housing:
In some rare cases, we may fund home modifications in ‘legacy’ or older social housing where the modifications are:
additional to reasonable adjustment and
specific to your disability support needs.
Specialist Disability Accommodation in rare situations, if you have an extreme functional impairment or very high support needs
Other than specialist disability accommodation, we generally don’t fund housing.
Remember, if we’re responsible for funding the support, it must also meet all other NDIS funding criteria before we can include it in your plan.
Examples of supports we may fund
There are some supports we may fund because of your disability needs. These include supports that help you:
Learn living skills, such as how to take care of your home, or how to cook or clean
Find somewhere to live and keep living there – This could include help to go to inspections or learn to pay rent on time
Plan and coordinate your housing from other services, with your NDIS supports
If you are at risk of, or are homeless – To help you get and keep secure and stable accommodation.
Example
Sid needs to urgently move out of his share-house. He’s looking for a rental property to live by himself for the first time. He’s at risk of homelessness because he is on a low income. Due to his disability, he needs help to learn how to take care of his new home when he finds one.
Sid goes to his state housing authority for emergency help to find a place to live. They will help get Sid emergency short term accommodation, and can help him find a home to rent longer term. They may also provide support to help Sid keep a rental home. For example, he may get help with some of the cost of renting the home, such as rent assistance.
We may fund supports that Sid needs because of his disability to help him live independently in his home. This could include support to help him go to rental inspections and learn to pay his bills on time. We may also fund support to help Sid learn useful daily life skills, such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of his new home.