There are better alternatives to group homes: these are known as individualised living arrangements.

Create alternatives for housing and living support.

Individualised living arrangements for those with disability, are integrated into the community as much as possible. They draw on a mix of supports, from formal, to semi-formal, to informal.

A host arrangement is where an adult with disability on the NDIS lives with a “host family or flat-mate”, who is not related to them, in the host’s home, becoming part of the household. A host might be a couple or an individual, and they provide semi-formal support. A home-share arrangement is where an adult with disability on the NDIS lives in their own home with a flat-mate who provides support.

Hosts and flat-mates might help with emotional support, companionship, cooking, cleaning, overnight help and other household tasks, and they receive a subsidy for their expenses.

Individualised living arrangements are not only cost effective, they give people with disability choice about where they live, who they live with, and who provides their support.

Share houses, not group homes.

Group homes are often run more like service facilities than people’s homes. Reforms are needed to establish share houses, so when people with disability decide to live with other people with disability and share supports, they can choose the rhythms of their daily life and who looks after them.

Moving to a system where paid support workers’ time can be shared can dramatically reduce the cost of supports, as this chart shows. This is critical in a scheme facing enormous cost pressures.

A growing feature of share houses could be sharing both formal and semi-formal support. Combining the economy of scale from sharing support workers, with semi-formal support from a housemate, would be a cost-effective way to run share houses in the future.

Read more:

The NDIS is failing profoundly disabled people who are stuck in group homes. Here’s how to fix this