SDA funding
SDA NDIS Funding Explained
How SDA funding sits in your NDIS plan, who is eligible, and how SDA differs from SIL and rent.
Your plan
How SDA funding sits in your NDIS plan
SDA NDIS funding pays for Specialist Disability Accommodation: the home itself, designed for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. If you’re eligible, the NDIA works out your SDA budget, and your plan sets the building type, design category and location of the home it funds.
The funding is paid to a registered SDA provider for a home that is enrolled as an SDA dwelling and that you live in. SDA may be a shared home with a small number of other people, where you have your own private bedroom, and you can choose to share your bedroom with someone like a partner.
Because SDA is designed for people with an extreme functional impairment or very high support needs, it’s likely you’ll always need it. Once it is in your plan and working well, you won’t need to prove you still meet the criteria at every plan reassessment.
Three NDIA questions
Who is eligible for SDA funding?
To work out if you’re eligible, the NDIA asks whether you have an extreme functional impairment or very high support needs, whether you have an SDA needs requirement, and whether SDA meets the NDIS funding criteria for you. It may ask for allied health professional reports, or reports about your daily support and housing needs, and it may ask for other assessments if it needs more information to make a decision.
If the NDIA decides SDA doesn’t meet the funding criteria, it gives you written reasons, and you can ask for more detail about the decision. If you have SDA funding for a new home, we can design and build your NDIS home with you.
What each one covers
SDA, SIL and rent: how they differ
SDA, supported independent living (SIL) and rent are separate. Your SDA provider provides your home, not the support you receive living there.
SDA funding
Covers the home: the building and its specialist design features. It doesn’t include the services or supports you get in your home.
Supported independent living (SIL)
A separate NDIS support for help or supervision with daily tasks, like personal care or cooking meals, for participants who need some level of help at home all the time. SIL doesn’t include rent or other day-to-day living costs.
Rent
You pay a reasonable rent contribution to your SDA provider, plus day-to-day costs such as bills. The maximum is 25% of the Disability Support Pension, 25% of the Pension Supplement and any Commonwealth Rent Assistance you receive.
You don’t need to use the same provider for your other supports. You can generally choose a different provider for SIL, individualised living options, personal care and support coordination, and your SDA provider must let you change those providers at any time. The amount of your rent contribution goes in your service agreement with the SDA provider, or in a separate rental agreement.
SDA funding covers four building types of SDA housing, from apartments to group homes, each built to an SDA design category.
You inspire. We empower.
Let us help guide you home
If you have SDA funding for a new home, let us build and design one with you, for you.
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