NDIS Housing Options for Young Adults with Disability: SIL, ILO, and SDA Explained

For families of teenagers with significant disabilities, the question of where their child will live as an adult is one of the most emotionally charged parts of transition planning. It is also one of the most poorly understood. The NDIS has three main housing-related funding pathways — Supported Independent Living (SIL), Individualised Living Options (ILO), and Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) — and they are fundamentally different in what they fund, who they're for, and how to access them.

Getting this wrong is costly. Families who don't understand these distinctions often end up either under-applying (their child gets no funded housing support) or pursuing the wrong pathway (they spend a year preparing for SIL when ILO would be a better fit). The groundwork for any of these options should begin two to three years before the anticipated move date — which, for school leavers, means during Year 10 or 11.

Why Housing Planning Must Start Before School Ends

Housing support is among the most resource-intensive funding categories in the NDIS. The evidence required to access it — particularly multidisciplinary assessments, functional capacity evaluations, and housing suitability reports — takes time to assemble. Waiting until your child finishes school, then requesting housing support in a plan review, almost guarantees a significant delay before anything is funded.

Additionally, the availability of appropriate housing and provider vacancies in most cities means families often need to be on waiting lists for 12–24 months before a placement becomes available. The earlier the process starts, the more options remain open.

Supported Independent Living (SIL): What It Is and Who It's For

Supported Independent Living is NDIS funding for the daily support workers who assist a person to live in shared or individual accommodation. SIL does not fund the property itself — it funds the people who provide support within the property.

SIL is typically used in shared-living arrangements where three to six people with disability live together in a house, with support workers rostered across day and overnight shifts. It is designed for people who require substantial support with daily living activities — personal care, cooking, medication management, behaviour support — and cannot be safely managed in a home without that funded staffing.

SIL is appropriate when:

• The person requires regular support throughout the day, including overnight
• The level of support needed cannot be managed through informal (family) arrangements or community participation
• The person is ready to live outside the family home, and there is a plan for the level of support they need

SIL funding is not automatic. The NDIS applies strict "reasonable and necessary" criteria. To access SIL, you typically need:

• A detailed functional capacity assessment from an occupational therapist, documenting the person's support needs in daily living tasks
• A robust housing support brief that describes the type of living arrangement proposed and the support model
• Evidence from the current NDIS plan review that supports the transition to independent living
• In many cases, a rostering model from a prospective SIL provider, demonstrating how support hours will be allocated

Families should start assembling this evidence in Year 10 or 11 — not after graduation.

Individualised Living Options (ILO): The Flexible Alternative

ILO is the NDIS's more flexible housing support framework. Unlike SIL, which predominantly funds staffed group houses, ILO funds are designed to support creative, person-centred living arrangements that may not fit the traditional group home model.

An ILO can fund support for a person living:

• With a host family (a family who provides support as part of a shared household arrangement)
• With a dedicated housemate who provides some informal support in exchange for reduced rent
• In their own home with flexible, individually tailored support workers
• In a hybrid arrangement combining formal and informal support

ILO is appropriate when:

• The person has clear preferences about where and how they want to live that don't fit a standard group home
• There is potential to use informal support networks (trusted family friends, community members) alongside formal NDIS funding
• The person has moderate rather than intensive support needs

The ILO process begins with an Exploration and Design phase, where a support planner works with the person and their family to design a living arrangement that reflects the person's goals and support requirements. This phase itself can take six to twelve months before any formal living arrangement is in place.

Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA): The Property Question

SDA is fundamentally different from SIL and ILO. While SIL and ILO fund the people providing support, SDA is an NDIS payment that goes to the property owner (or developer) to cover the cost of building or modifying accommodation with specialist physical features. SDA funding does not fund support workers.

SDA is only available to a small proportion of NDIS participants — those with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs who require specialist housing features such as:

• Robust construction for participants who may engage in self-injury or property damage
• Fully accessible designs for wheelchair users or people with significant physical disability
• High physical support features (ceiling hoists, wet area bathrooms, emergency power)
• Assistive technology integration

SDA eligibility is assessed separately from general NDIS plan funding and requires its own evidence process. For most school leavers with intellectual or developmental disabilities, SDA will not be relevant. For those with significant physical disabilities or acquired brain injuries requiring specialist physical environments, SDA planning should begin well before school transition.

How to Start the Housing Planning Process

Regardless of which pathway is relevant, the practical starting point is the same: commission an occupational therapy functional capacity assessment that specifically addresses housing and daily living support needs. This assessment should evaluate:

• The person's current capacity to perform personal care tasks independently
• The support needed for cooking, meal preparation, and household management
• Safety risks in unmonitored environments (fire, flood, road safety, medication management)
• Behavioural support needs that may affect living arrangements
• The person's own preferences and goals for where they live

This assessment becomes the cornerstone of any SIL, ILO, or SDA application to the NDIS. Without it, planners have no basis to approve significant housing funding.

Once the assessment is complete, the next step is to raise housing as a formal goal in the NDIS planning meeting — ideally at the Year 11 or Year 12 review. Frame the goal specifically: not "my child wants to leave home one day" but "our goal is for [name] to be living independently with funded support within 18–24 months of finishing school. We are requesting funding for the ILO Exploration and Design phase in this plan."

The Australia Post-Secondary Transition Roadmap includes a full NDIS planning chapter covering how to write housing goals that meet the reasonable and necessary criteria, and a timeline showing when to trigger housing planning milestones alongside other transition activities.

The Most Common Mistake: Assuming Group Homes Are the Only Option

Many families still operate under the assumption that the only post-school housing option for a person with high support needs is a disability group home. The reality is far more varied. ILO in particular has opened up a range of creative arrangements that allow young people to live in environments that genuinely suit them — rather than the available vacancy.

Conversely, some families are so focused on keeping their child at home that housing planning never happens at all, leaving adult children in arrangements that don't support their independence or social development.

Both extremes ultimately result in worse outcomes. The planning goal is not to land on any particular living arrangement but to have the NDIS funding and the provider relationships in place so that when your child is ready to move toward more independent living, the infrastructure exists to support it.

Starting that process now — regardless of where exactly you think the destination will be — is the single most important thing families can do in the transition years.

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