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From 1 October 2026, the Australian Government will begin resetting funding for some NDIS supports, including social, economic and community participation and improved daily living skills.
There is important reassurance for people living in, or considering, Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA): SDA funding itself is not being reduced by these changes.
The Government has also introduced a safeguard intended to protect eligible participants who require 24-hour disability support where the funding reset would leave a gap in their existing support arrangements.
These are important protections. But for people with high support needs, housing doesn’t operate in isolation.
SDA funding is only one part of establishing and sustaining an ordinary life of your choosing. Participants may also need appropriate daily living supports, workable SIL or other support arrangements, opportunities to participate in their community, and genuine choice over who provides their supports.
So the bigger question is: will the reforms continue to enable people to establish and sustain the living arrangements they choose?
The Government recognises that some participants use funding across different parts of their NDIS plan to maintain support throughout the day and night. Reducing funding in one category could therefore create an unintended gap in their 24-hour support.
A new plan variation pathway is intended to address this for eligible participants.
Among the requirements, a participant must require funded support throughout the day and night and have had at least $215,030 across specified daily living, home and living, and community participation supports before the reset. Their 24-hour supports must also involve shared support at a ratio of at least 1:3.
The use of 1:3 in this safeguard should not be interpreted as a requirement or preferred living arrangement for SDA participants. Individual arrangements can include different combinations of 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 support.
If the reset leaves an eligible participant unable to maintain their required 24-hour supports, they or their nominee can generally request a plan variation within 90 days. Additional daily living or home and living funding may then be provided, up to the amount removed through the reset.
This is an important limitation of the safeguard.
It is designed to address a funding gap created by the reset. The amount restored cannot exceed the amount that was removed.
So while the safeguard may return a participant to their previous funding level, it does not determine whether that previous level was sufficient to meet their needs or support the living arrangement they are seeking.
A participant may already have been struggling to make their support arrangement work. Alternatively, their circumstances or support needs may have changed, or their existing funding may reflect one living environment – such as residential aged care, hospital or the family home – while they are now seeking to establish a different arrangement in SDA.
Separate NDIA plan-change pathways remain available where the relevant criteria are met, including where there has been a significant and ongoing change in a participant’s circumstances or support needs. A plan reassessment can consider whether different or additional supports are required.
But that serves a different purpose from the new safeguard.
Restoring someone’s previous funding position and establishing what they need for a changed living arrangement are not necessarily the same thing.
SDA funding pays for specialist housing. SIL and other home and living supports fund the assistance a participant needs to live there.
A participant can therefore have appropriate SDA funding and a suitable home, but still have difficulty establishing or sustaining their chosen living arrangement if an appropriate support model cannot be put in place.
The reverse can also occur: a participant may have appropriate support funding but be unable to find suitable SDA, compatible housemates or workable shared-support arrangements.
This is why housing and support need to work together.
But they should remain separate choices.
NDIA guidance recognises that participants do not need to use the same provider for their SDA and other supports, and that SDA participants must be able to change providers for their other NDIS supports.
That principle is central to DEC’s ‘SIL-agnostic’ approach, one that we’ve adopted from the beginning. Our tenants choose their own support providers and can change them without affecting their SDA tenancy.
As the NDIS changes, it will be important that this remains a practical choice for all participants, not simply a right on paper.
This is where the interaction between the reforms becomes particularly important.
The Government says people living in residential aged care are unlikely to qualify for the new high support needs safeguard because their aged care facility already provides 24-hour support.
That may make sense when looking only at their current arrangement.
But what if they want to leave?
The NDIA has a stated commitment to supporting younger participants who want to leave residential aged care, including helping them explore alternative housing and home and living supports.
The support package required to live safely in SDA may be very different from the NDIS supports required while someone is living in an aged care facility.
Not qualifying for this particular safeguard does not prevent a participant from seeking a plan change through other pathways. But it raises an important implementation question:
Will people seeking to leave aged care be assessed according to the supports they need to establish their chosen life in the community, rather than simply the supports required in their current setting?
The same principle can apply to someone leaving hospital or the family home, moving from unsuitable accommodation, or establishing a new shared living arrangement.
Protecting existing arrangements matters. Choice and control also requires the system to support appropriate new ones.
The Government’s use of 1:3 shared support as part of the safeguard also highlights the practical relationship between participant funding and provider viability.
Sharing some supports can work extremely well. A participant might receive individual assistance at certain times and share support with one or two housemates at others.
But the arrangement needs to work for the participants involved.
It also needs to be sustainable for the organisations delivering it.
If a SIL provider cannot sustainably staff an arrangement, participants can experience disruption to their supports. Similarly, from an SDA provider’s perspective, if appropriate homes cannot be sustainably developed and operated over the long term, the range of housing available to participants may ultimately be affected.
Participants shouldn’t be placed under inappropriate pressure to live with particular people or use a particular support provider simply to make an arrangement financially viable.
Provider sustainability and participant choice should not be competing objectives. A well designed system needs both.
This is particularly relevant because broader changes are occurring around SIL.
New mandatory registration requirements for SIL commenced from 1 July 2026, together with new SIL Practice Standards and transitional arrangements.
Separately, the Government is considering whether to commission a portion of the SIL market for participants requiring continuous 24-hour support. At the time of writing, the Department’s line is that “The Government has not decided whether or not it will introduce SIL commissioning.”
These are different reforms: new SIL registration requirements are being implemented; SIL commissioning remains a separate policy proposal.
The Government’s consideration of SIL reform includes participant outcomes, service quality, continuity of support and provider viability.
For SDA participants, the eventual direction matters. Any future model should preserve meaningful choice over both where a participant lives and who supports them there.
DEC welcomes the recognition that participants requiring 24-hour support need safeguards and the confirmation that SDA itself is not affected by these particular funding reductions.
Our focus will be on how the reforms work together in practice.
We’ll be watching:
Because an SDA approval, a support budget and a suitable house are not outcomes in themselves.
The outcome that matters is whether a participant can establish a secure home and an ordinary life of their choosing – with the people they choose, the supports they need, and the freedom to make different choices when their life changes.
That should remain the measure of whether the system is working.
This article discusses Australian Government information released in September 2026 about changes to NDIS support budgets and safeguards for participants with high support needs, together with broader reforms relevant to SDA and SIL. Individual circumstances and NDIS plans vary, and participants should seek advice relevant to their circumstances.
