Page 892 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2018
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in different models of accommodation. The website will be launched in 2018 and will be responsive to new information and a changing environment. Promotion of these models is critical to developing a supply of affordable and appropriate housing for people with disability.
One significant and ongoing reform in this space is the national disability insurance scheme’s specialist disability accommodation stream. The SDA, as it is called, is the funding mechanism to increase housing supply and develop better and more suitable housing for NDIS participants whose complex disability and support needs require a specialist accommodation response. In the ACT we expect that between 350 and 700 participants may be eligible to receive SDA funding in their plans. The National Disability Insurance Agency has opened conversations on this front, and the ACT Office for Disability will support and engage with the community and business to achieve good outcomes in housing and accommodation for Canberrans with a disability.
While the NDIS is a fantastic Labor initiative that will transform lives, it is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to improving affordable, appropriate and accessible housing availability for people with disabilities. States and territories need to keep working with people with disabilities, not-for-profit organisations, innovative developers and the community housing sector. In the ACT and across Australia there is a need to increase the supply of affordable and accessible housing for people with disability.
As I outlined in Parity magazine last year, this must include diversifying housing types so that there are more mainstream properties suitable for people with disability, rather than just an increased supply of disability-specific properties. I firmly believe that working with property developers and the housing industry is critical to ensuring they understand the need and the demand for universal and livable design properties.
In respect of the ACT government’s housing stock, Housing ACT continues to redevelop ageing and inefficient public housing stock with modern, more contemporary designs which are built to either class C adaptable standard or livable guidelines gold level. This provides more affordable properties that are better able to respond to the needs of tenants such as those with a disability, allowing people to stay in dwellings as they grow older whilst maintaining the community links they have established.
Beyond the social and public housing sectors, work across tenure type will also provide increased affordable rental options for people with disability. This means working with the private sector and within the private rental market to develop longer term tenure types so that people with disability are afforded greater stability and security in rental accommodation.
Alongside this, work is required to develop and test innovative new financial products, such as shared equity, which facilitate home ownership for people with disability along with others who are currently disadvantaged in the housing market so that they are no longer locked out of the housing market and the wealth creation that comes from home ownership.
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