Mr BAYLEY – I want to talk about specialist disability accommodation. In Tasmania we have a high proportion of people living with a disability: 26.8 versus 17 per cent elsewhere. There’s significant demand, and I note that your dashboard says that 2735 Homes Tasmania tenants are living with a disability. The Housing Strategy Action Plan reports that as of April last year, 38 per cent of all applications on the housing register involve a person living with a disability, so we acknowledge that there’s a significant need. The action plan identifies a specific action around addressing the housing needs of people with a disability, and it should have been delivered by 30 June this year. The action reads:
Develop a plan for the future of the Homes Tasmania specialist disability accommodation portfolio for people with extreme functional impairment or very high needs.
Has this plan been completed?
Mr ELLIS – The Tasmanian Housing Strategy 2023-2043 and associated action plan sets out the government’s plan to address the housing needs of all Tasmanians, including people living with a disability. From 1 October 2024, all newly built properties from Homes Tasmania will be required to meet the National Construction Code’s liveable design provisions. That will mean that they’ll be accessible and adaptable for people living with disability. That’s really important because, as you mentioned, we have quite a high rate of people with disability applying for our homes.
Homes Tasmania is the owner of a small number of properties that are designed for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs, and these homes have been built with robust features and living areas for the provision of 24/7 support from specialist disability support services that provide on-site care to those residents under the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Teams of NDIS‑funded staff provide support to those residents. Homes Tasmania is working closely with support services and remains committed to working together to develop solutions to improve the quality of life for residents, and a significant part of the design of these properties is to assist those living with disability and staff.
I’ll pass over to Homes Tasmania.
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – Many of the specialist disability accommodation – as you know there’s a small number of those, so a couple of hundred. We’ve been in discussion with the sector about what’s the best way to manage those properties. Some other state housing authorities have completely divested the disability portfolio, and that was one of the options available to us. There wasn’t a lot of support for that in the sector. It’s a difficult sector because nobody can control who’s in or out except if your clients are getting NDIS funding.
We’re not able to access specialist disability accommodation available through the NDIS. We’ve been doing some work with the non-government sector and advocacy bodies around what’s the best thing to do with that portfolio. There was very strong support in the industry sounding we did last year for us to become an SDA provider as well, because regardless of whether we continue to own all of our properties, we know that we will be the provider of last resort for some of our clients with very challenging behaviours. We’re about to go and release a tender to get some advice on how we become an SDA provider, so we will do that. Once we become an SDA provider, some of our SDA clients have packages from the NDIS that go for the accommodation bit of around $50,000 a year, which we would invest in the disability portfolio over time. We would reconfigure our group homes because that’s actually key –
Mr BAYLEY – So, the Homes Tasmania plan to provide for this that was identified in the strategy to be delivered by 30 June – is there such a thing? Has it been released?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – There is a plan that’s gone through our board. It’s not a public plan, but it’s not a secret plan. There’s a plan that’s gone through our board to become an SDA provider, and the disability sector would be aware of that. We’ll be working with them. To get accredited as a SDA provider is a regulatory process we’ve got to go through, and I imagine that it takes a –
Mr BAYLEY – And you have made a decision to do that and go through that process?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – The board has made a decision, and I think the tender is going out this month. It’s ready to go. We’re just –
Mr BAYLEY – So, it made a commitment also to maintain those assets that provide for specialist accommodation?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – Maintain and possibly redevelop some of them, because, like a lot of state housing authorities, we have legacy group homes, which for all sorts of reasons don’t work for people with disabilities.
Mr BAYLEY – Does the plan include increasing supply in that very niche space?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – It may, but in recent months there’s been a considerable influx of providers because consumers have choice now. Consumers can go with another provider, and there are a number of providers coming in who are not at the really high-needs end of the market. I forget what the technical term is, but there are a lot of providers coming in buildings wheelchair‑accessible properties. I suspect that where we will be is in a niche bit of the market, but it’s likely that we will redevelop some of our existing properties.
