Resource for prospective SDA investors

An advocacy group for young people living in aged care has produced a resource for potential investors in Specialist Disability Accommodation.

The Summer Foundation says the SDA market is well placed to leverage private capital and it wants to help prospective investors make informed choices.

The resource, Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) Explainer For Investors, seeks to capitalise on the momentum for impact investment – or investment that generates social as well as financial benefits.

The report provides an outline of investment principles and questions relating to SDA properties, quality of dwellings, tenant selection, disability support and ensuring that investment is set up for a long-term positive social impact.

It explains the NDIS and the SDA market, including demand and supply outlooks, and looks at investment opportunities, risks and returns, and issues around market stewardship and infrastructure.

Some 28,000 NDIS participants are currently eligible for SDA funding, the report says.

“These potential SDA tenants are currently living with parents, living in government owned disability housing … or living in other forms of inappropriate housing such as aged care, hospital, hostels or boarding houses,” it says.

The report says housing for over 1,800 SDA tenants is in the pipeline, in addition to registered SDA that is new or refurbished and has the capacity to house 2,615 people.

Meanwhile, up to two thirds of SDA built prior to 2016 will need to be rebuilt or reconfigured to meet current standards, and new SDA for an estimated 19,000 NDIS participants needs to be built over the next 10 years.

“As an emerging market, SDA has enormous potential to provide both long-term stable returns to investors, while also meeting the housing needs of people with disability,” the report says.

It says with SDA payments expected to total approximately $700 million per year, building housing required for the SDA market has the potential to stimulate around $5 billion in private sector investment.

The final report of the aged care royal commission has recommended that no person under 65 should go into residential care from January 2022 and that there should not be anyone under that age in residential aged care by 2025.

It also calls for the NDIA to publish an SDA national plan setting out priority locations and proposed responses to thin or underdeveloped markets.

Post parental housing transitions

Meanwhile, a team of researchers from the Caring Futures Institute will work to address the housing needs of adults with intellectual disability after winning a $3,000 grant from the Australian Research Council.

Associate Professor Ruth Walker and colleagues will lead a team investigating “post-parental housing transitions among adults with intellectual disability” to address growing numbers of older people with intellectual disability outliving their parent carers.

The Caring Futures Institute says the project aims to find a solution for post-parental housing and care and develop an evidence-based resource kit for for older people with intellectual disability, their family carers and the disability sector.

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