Choosing a SIL home: a guide for families and participants

If someone you love has SIL funding — or is about to — this guide explains what Supported Independent Living actually is, what to look for in a home, and the questions worth asking before anyone moves in. It's written for families, but support coordinators are welcome to share it.

What SIL is — and isn't

Supported Independent Living (SIL) is NDIS funding for help with daily tasks at home — cooking, personal care, medication, getting to appointments, managing the household. It's for people who need support for a large part of the day, usually including overnight. It's paid to a provider, who rosters the staff.

SIL is the support, not the house. The house is separate. Most people in SIL share a home with one or two other participants, and the provider either owns or leases the property.

What SIL doesn't pay for: rent, board, food, utilities, or the house itself. Those come from the person's own income, Disability Support Pension, and sometimes Commonwealth Rent Assistance. Ask the provider exactly what the rent-and-board arrangement is before you commit.

Other acronyms you'll meet:

• SDA — Specialist Disability Accommodation. Funding for the building itself, only for people with very high physical support needs. Most people in SIL do not have SDA.
• ILO — Individualised Living Options. Funding to design your own living arrangement, often living alone or with a housemate you choose, with less intensive support than SIL.
• STA / MTA — Short-Term and Medium-Term Accommodation. Respite and bridging stays, not a permanent home.

What the support ratio means

You'll see numbers like 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3. That's one support worker to one, two or three residents at a time. A house might be 1:3 during the day and 1:1 for someone who needs it during a particular activity. It's set by the person's plan and the roster of care the provider submits to the NDIA.

Overnight is either sleepover (a worker sleeps on site and can be woken) or active night (a worker is awake all night). Ask which one the house runs and whether it can change if needs change.

Ten questions to ask before anyone moves in

1. Who lives here now? Age range, gender, and whether the home is single-gender. You won't get names, but you should get enough to know if it's a fit.
2. How do you match housemates? A good provider will tell you their process and be honest if they think it won't work.
3. Can we visit? If the answer is no, walk away.
4. What's the ratio, day and night? And what happens if the other residents' needs change?
5. Is the home accessible? Steps, bathroom, doorways. If the person uses a wheelchair or a hoist, a "single-storey" home is not automatically suitable.
6. What does rent and board cover? Get it in writing.
7. Can they implement a Behaviour Support Plan? If the person has one, the provider needs to say yes without hesitating.
8. What happens after a hospital admission? Does the room stay theirs? For how long?
9. Who do we call when something goes wrong? A name and a number, not "the office".
10. What does the first month look like? Settling-in plan, how they'll keep you informed, when you'll review.

Warning signs

• Vacancy listed as "coming soon" for months
• No photos of the actual house, or photos that look like a real estate listing
• Can't tell you who the current residents are, even in general terms
• Pressure to sign before you've visited
• Vague about whether staff are on site overnight
• Won't say who the responsible manager is

What Careable does

We run two SIL homes in Melbourne's north-east — Heidelberg Heights (women) and Macleod (men) — both single-storey, staffed 24 hours, five to seven minutes from the Austin Hospital. Neither is wheelchair-accessible, and we say so. We support people with psychosocial disability and complex daily-living needs, including participants with a behaviour support plan (we're registered to implement behaviour support plans) and people stepping down from PARC or SECU.

Every referral is acknowledged within one business day, and you'll have a clear answer on capacity within two. After a move-in, the family and referrer get a written first-week note.

Careable · 1300 332 433 · cx@careable.com.au · careable.com.au/sil-vacancies Registered NDIS provider 4-GL94SW1 · Livlly Technologies Pty Ltd T/A Careable