Can you imagine being born already handicapped by a disability, then not even having the right to achieve Independent Living standards?
NDIS Housing gives those with disability a place to call home
Current Situation
We know that the place we call home has a uniqueness to it and it plays a significant role in our lives. This is our ‘come home to place’, our own oasis or safe haven, the very foundation of our lives where we can seek out solitude or human contact.
Well, this is not the case for Australia’s massive population of fellow humans who have a disability!
This is definitely not the case for Australia’s 6,000 or so younger generation who have to live in Aged Care!
And we say we are ‘caring’ and ‘loving people … ouch!
If so, more of our youth would not be existing day to day in an environment which is so not conducive to Living. Have you been inside an aged care facility, sure for the aged and those in need of this level of care it is a type of home to them …. BUT not for someone under 40 !!
Yet they just don’t have choice, and that breaks my heart as it should yours.
This is a lonely life, this is a life lacking in motivation to live, this is a life of mere existence from meal to meal from sleep to sleep when a helluva lot of this sector can add tremendous value to our communities … but never afforded the opportunity to do so. Can you imagine being young and just waiting to die????
Can you imagine not receiving visitors and being surrounded by the very environment an aged care facility induces? For a vast majority of our youth, this will be the last place that they will ever live. I cry just thinking about this!
Did you know that the average age for residents entering an aged care facility is 83 years of age?
And did you know that a massive 73% of active participants in Aged Care are now under 45 years young? Aged care is just not compatible for their lifestyle … but what other choice do family have in trying to cope with a family member with a disability.
The Aged Care system is a focus on slowing the rate of autonomy and independence and economic participation, making residents more dependent on their system.
Solution
Along comes a government initiative called the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), a brilliant initiative designed to support independence, enablement and social and economic participation.
A relatively new solution to the current lack of suitable housing options for people with disabilities is the government’s strategy to incentivise you the investor to build a dwelling to house a person (or persons) with disability. These are dwellings that are either adapted or built from scratch that aside from certain modifications are your average traditional home.
From the outside, they are a residential dwelling. Inside they include wider passageways, wider doorways, required modifications to allow for and make life for your tenants easier whilst coping with their disability. Leading as normal a life as they can in your dwelling within our communities.
Aged care is just not a suitable environment just because they have a disability, is it? Can you imagine hearing “I’m best off living somewhere that everyone agrees isn’t the right place for me, because there’s nothing else suitable.”
For young people who qualify for an active NDIS plan who are also SDA approved, moving out of an aged care facility (or even their parents home) is a blessing and an opportunity for growth. The NDIS and SDA schemes are making many positive impacts and now you the investor can also invest in a ‘feel great’ investment property where rental yields are above industry norm and you also have the opportunity for capital growth … whilst changing the lives of those in need for the positive! How good is that!
Personally I am concerned that it pays an Aged Care Facility (remember they are privately owned businesses) to access the NDIS and the SDA grants to ensure their profitability. From their business point of view, having a captured market of young people who are mostly funded through the NDIS is extremely profitable for them. The question them becomes “why would they encourage a resident to leave?” as it is not in their interests.
The NDIA recently committed to establishing a Complex Needs Pathway to specifically look at younger people living in aged care, this Agency needs to solve a lot of problems in getting multiple systems to work together. The Agency needs to offer security of investment so properties can be designed and individualised to meet various levels of disability in adequately housing tenants with their needs. More diverse dwellings need to be built, and built as soon as possible.
The Australian Government cannot build these homes and through the NDIS and SDA investors are incentivised by higher rental yields to put another new dwelling on the market for rent by this sector of our population, giving them independence and if you think about it a ‘real life’.
Life or Existence?
Life for a younger person with a disability in an Aged Care facility is no life! The size and scale of the challenge is immense, but this becomes your investment opportunity. Help get younger people out of aged care and living the life they as already challenged people deserve to live.
The NDIS is an incredible once in a lifetime opportunity to gather the support systems together in moving younger people out of a system which was not designed for them by any means.
You may not be aware, there are 475,000 Australians with disability who would do anything to lead as normal a life as possible in and amongst our own communities … and now you have the chance to make a difference.
