NDIS ‘failing’ tens of thousands of profoundly disabled Australians: report

NDIS spends more than $15bn a year on disability housing and support for some of Australia’s most profoundly disabled people. A report questions whether that is improving their lives.

Disabled people need better housing support: report.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is spending at least $15bn a year on 43,000 profoundly disabled Australians who need specialist housing and support, but there is little evidence it is giving them a better life, a new study finds.

The Grattan Institute research notes these NDIS participants receive more than $350,000 a year on average for intensive support, but even so, many have no genuine choice over where they live, who they live with and who cares for them.

Too often they are stuck in group homes, often for decades, where they face greater risk of violence, abuse and neglect, the Institute’s first report from its disability program, “Better, safer, more sustainable: How to reform NDIS housing and support”, finds.

Grattan Institute disability program director and report co-author Sam Bennett said it showed the scheme was “failing” tens of thousands of people with the profound disability.

Dr Bennett said almost 40 per cent of the NDIS’s $44bn-a-year cost was spent on the 7 per cent of participants receiving specialist housing and support.

Sam Bennett, director of the Grattan Institute's disability program.

“The government needs, and disabled people deserve, far better services for this price tag,” he said.

Key among the failings was the continuing numbers of disabled Australians living in big, institutional-style group homes, which often does not accord with their wishes and exposes them to greater risk of abuse and neglect, the paper finds.

“Many group homes have three or four residents, while some (known as ‘legacy stock’) have six or more people living together,” the report says.

“People who live in group homes tend to stay there for a long time. Nearly four out of five people have lived in their group home for decades, having transferred into the NDIS from old, state-run disability systems.

“Little has changed for these people since the start of the NDIS, a scheme that should transform the lives of people with profound disabilities.”

The report notes demand for Supported Independent Living is projected to increase from 34,000 to 50,000 by 2033 “as more parents from the baby boomer generation grow too old to care for their children and people age within the scheme”.

It proposes a series of policy measures to help this cohort of profoundly disabled people, with the aim of phasing out the large group homes within 15 years.

One is to free up NDIS funding to allow for alternative “semi-formal” living arrangements, such as funding families to “host” a participant in their home, or financially support a flatmate to provide disability support in lieu of rent.

It notes Western Australia has been doing its support this way for decades and achieving better outcomes than other states.

And for those who wish to live with others with disability, there should be a shift from group homes to true share houses, with decision-making power moving from the disability provider to the resident.

“The most important difference between a group home and a share house is the level of choice and agency that people have over their day-to-day lives,” the report says. “Residents should be able to control who they live with, who looks after them, and how.”

The Albanese government has recently passed legislation it hopes will rein in the cost of the NDIS, one of its biggest-spending programs. NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said the changes are designed to bring cost growth down to 8 per cent a year, with costs last year growing at 18 per cent.