In one home for people with disabilities, toilet paper was rationed. In another, a resident was left in the garden for two hours on a roasting hot day. He had to be taken to hospital for exposure and sunburn.
Housing for people with disability is being transformed from grants-based funding to a market-based system where people with disabilities control their own funding. This market has the potential to grow in size by around A$5 billion over the next five years in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Robin and Bernard Shanahan are exhausted. They’ve been lobbying on behalf of their two children with disabilities for decades. Now in their seventies, they’d like to enjoy a well-earned retirement.
We want to contribute to Australian society but we usually find that we can’t access the workplace, can’t access public venues, can’t have a holiday because there is no suitable accommodation.”
Closing date: July 16, 2017
She had been house-hunting for months while living out of her car and was devastated when she was told the house wasn’t suitable for someone with a disability, or a dog.
This study investigated the interconnections between housing, community infrastructure and quality of life for Indigenous people living with disability. It incorporated three case studies from Yalata and Point Pearce in South Australia and Greater Geelong in Victoria that revealed poor health and disability are major issues facing the Indigenous populations in these areas. The research … Continued
More than 100 prominent academics have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling for a royal commission into violence, abuse and neglect of people with a disability.
Data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) shows that admissions of young people with disability to RAC rose by 20 per cent in 2016 in two of the three NDIS trial sites despite the NDIS being available.
In follow up to the Summer Housing story on Lateline last week, George has written an article for Pro Bono News which highlights the importance of the disability and housing sectors working together so that people with disability can choose where they live, and who they live with. It points to the role that SDA … Continued
Just one day after the ABC aired last week’s Four Corners investigation into taxpayer-funded group homes for the disabled, my office had a call about an extremely troubling case of violence in a home for people with disabilities in Victoria.
A hundred years ago people with an intellectual disability were locked up in “lunatic asylums”. Today they’re still locked away, but it’s just behind the walls of suburbia.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is expected to help more people with disability access the support services they need to live independently in the community. But the majority of NDIS participants have low incomes. So, without substantial financial assistance, they struggle to find affordable housing to move into.
Carers have claimed a 21-year-old Victorian woman with cerebral palsy and a severe intellectual disability who was half-dragged from a taxi into a home “did not really feel pain”.
The closure of Bendigo’s institution for people with severe disabilities is almost complete, but there is continued uncertainty about how the former residents will be cared for once the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is rolled out. The Sandhurst Centre in North Bendigo is being closed and its 30 residents are being moved into five … Continued
Parents of disabled people in group homes say they are concerned a culture of covering up serious incidents and avoiding police scrutiny pervades the sector.