Home

Accommodation

Background

Housing and accommodation for people with disability is an issue that regularly comes under the spotlight of funding bodies, regulators, the media and the general community.

In the past, an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach was taken to the high proportion of people with a severe or profound disability living in accommodation settings in which service providers offered ‘whole of life’ care. In these settings, service providers were responsible for everything from childcare through to special school, recreational activities, sheltered employment and/or day care and eventually aged care.

This ‘cradle to grave’ segregation is no longer acceptable and there is now a far greater emphasis on service integration and normalisation - principles which underpin the Commonwealth Disability Services Act (1986) and the DDA itself.

While the States and Territories have responsibility for accommodation services under the Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Services Agreement (CSTDA), the rate of progress towards community style ‘normal’ accommodation has been
criticised for being too slow. In recent times, a number of individual States and Territories have been forced to conduct inquiries into the provision of accommodation services for people with a disability due to sub-standard care and systemic abuse.

Current Situation

Currently:

  • Young people with a disability are living in inappropriate institutional care facilities.
  • People with disabilities placed in institutions continue to live in appalling conditions and suffer ongoing abuse and degradation of their basic human rights.
  • In 1998 the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare identified 13,500 people with disabilities who were in urgent need of accommodation and support services.
  • Hundreds of people with psychiatric disability live in sub standard boarding houses without appropriate support services.
  • Women with disabilities continue to be denied access to emergency accommodation and refuges to escape violence and abuse.

An Accommodation Standard
An Accommodation Standard could be divided into three specific areas:

  • Disability specific accommodation (ie specific care facilities for people with an intellectual sisability);
  • Emergency accommodation such as shelters; and
  • Mainstream accommodation such motels, caravan parks and rental etc.

In November 2004, the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations met with the Attorney-General and raised the need for work on a Disability Standard for Accommodation to commence. Unfortunately, further work in this area has been deferred until some of the current standards have been completed.