July 7, 2025 • 11 mins
Peter Greco chats with Tom Worsnop, Engagement Manager from Guardian Living, a Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) provider. Guardian Living can help provide thoughtfully designed SDA homes and ongoing tenancy support, helping people with disabilities live well and feel truly at home.
More info: Guardian Living
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:13):
Tom Warsop is the community engagement manager for Guardian Living.
When I find out a bit about them and the
services that they offer. Tom. Great to meet you. Thank
you for your time.
S2 (00:22):
No worries. Good to be on board with you.
S1 (00:24):
Just a bit about Guardian Living then you offer a
specialised disability accommodation. Yeah.
S2 (00:29):
So Guardian Living has been going for about, um, eight
years now. Um, we were set up specifically to create
housing opportunities for people with disabilities through the NDIS system.
There's a particular part of that system called SDA Specialist
Disability Accommodation. And so that's the area that we specialise in.
S1 (00:48):
And when we talk about accommodation, of course, that's such
an important thing. So much news around homelessness or people
not being able to get into homes. So how does
one qualify to get into an SDA or how does
that kind of side of the equation work?
S2 (01:02):
So SDA is the part of the housing system for
people with disabilities that's funded directly by the NDIS itself.
So what people, um, need to do is they need
to be eligible for the NDIS and have a plan.
The usual process then, is people identify that they want to,
they need a new housing option and so that becomes
(01:24):
a goal in their plan. And then what you do
is you submit what's called a home and living application,
which is actually about determining or describing what sort of
housing you're looking for. And usually then what you'll get
in your plan is some resources, like for OTS who
can actually help to put together a functional assessment around
(01:44):
what particular housing requirements you might need. And that might
be anything from specialist access elements, both physical access elements
and things like communication issues. Um, and it also might
mean why there is a reason why the NDIS should
pay for your housing, rather than you might want to
just have housing from the public housing system or the
(02:05):
general market. So you get a house, home and living
application into the NDIS. You get the resources then to
help to describe what housing supports you might need Aid.
And then what you do is you get a decision
from the application for an SDA specific request. So if
(02:25):
you can determine that you need a specialist housing response
that the NDIS should fund, then an application goes in
and the home living branch then makes a decision about
what sort of SDA you might be qualifying for or
eligible for.
S1 (02:41):
What about the types of disability that people have?
S2 (02:44):
Yeah, so there are different types of disabilities that people
might have. As I said, one of the most obvious
ones is if people have got particular access needs. So
if they're in a wheelchair, for example, and they need
wider doors, if they need support with transferring from their
bed to their chair, they might need, um, capacity for
a ceiling hoist in their bedroom. But if they have got, um,
(03:06):
communication issues, for example, if they've got limited verbal capacity,
we may need to set up specialist ways in which
they can communicate with their support workers, particularly if those
support workers aren't with them in the house where they're
living at the time. So there's a whole range of those.
The other category of SDA, just to mention is what
(03:27):
we call robust housing. So there are four different categories
of housing that are funded through the NDIS system. And
robust housing is built specifically for people who may have
behaviours of concern. So they may be somebody with a
complex autism presentation, for example, and they may need ways
(03:47):
in which the house itself can be made secure and
that security might be for the person themselves or it
might be for their workers. So, for example, a robust
housing option may have exit doors so that there's a
second door out of a room just in case somebody's
behavior is endangering their staff member or endangering themselves. So
(04:08):
there's a range of different SDA housing that you can
be eligible for. And then what we do as an
SDA provider is we build certain types of housing. Either
we build them on the basis that we think there
will be demand for them. But more and more now,
we're hoping to be able to identify what sort of
housing people need in particular and then build to those needs.
S1 (04:30):
Well, it's going to ask you about that, Tom. That's
a great point you make there. Like in terms of
it being, you know, person centred. So it's not like
we've got this. Do you think you can fit in.
You're kind of trying to build or provide what people
are wanting.
S2 (04:44):
Yeah. So when the NDIS set up, as everybody kept
on saying it was, you know, building the airplane while
trying to fly it. So a lot of the initial
work was done about, okay, well, we think we know
what people need. So we build our product and then
what we look for is seeking people who are eligible
for that product. So Guardian living ourselves, we started by
(05:04):
building apartment developments. So that's where you might have a
single apartment living on your own in a big apartment development.
We might have, you know, anywhere between 6 and 10
apartments for people to live in. And then there'll be
an extra apartment in that apartment block, which is staffed
24 hours a day, so that people can live independently
as much as they can, but they can call on
(05:27):
a staff member if they haven't got anybody with them
at the time, and there's an unexpected emergency, or, you know,
they need somebody to help with a particular activity that
wasn't planned.
S1 (05:36):
So it's a kind of a fairly flexible thing. Or
what's your kind of NDIS plan is established with this
accommodation being part of it? That's kind of it sort
of almost indefinitely or until circumstances change.
S2 (05:48):
So people get, um, they get their SDA eligibility and
they're then basically what we'd call a market. They go
out to market to look for something that they can
that will suit them. That's the sort of the formal process.
The SDA eligibility stays with the individual. So they get
that SDA eligibility in their plan. And so they then
(06:10):
can choose like for example, one of our houses. And
then we can we create a lease for them. Their
their leases like any other public housing lease would be.
And then people if they choose to stay on there,
they can stay on there for as long as they like.
And then other people may decide after a little while
that they want to find a different sort of housing
solution so they can take their SDA with them and
(06:33):
actually set up a new lease with another company. And
it's like everything with any lease, there are conditions around
how much notice you have to give if you want
to leave things like that, but primarily it's trying to
set up a system whereby people can find their forever housing,
and if they can find that, and that's what we
have a product that will suit them, then they'll stay
(06:53):
there for as long as they need to. But also,
you know, people's needs change. So they might set up
a lease with us this year and then two years
down the track, they might have benefited from having, you know,
good housing that actually helps support their needs. And they
might find that they want to either move to another
place like anybody else in the community does, so they
(07:13):
can take their SDA eligibility with them and set that
up with somebody else.
S1 (07:17):
Fantastic. What about in terms of the quote unquote living arrangements?
Are you on your own? Can you choose to live
in a group? Uh, if there's two of you as
a couple, if you like. How does all that work?
S2 (07:29):
So the aim is to give people as much choice
in housing as as they as we can. So we
have different types of housing. So I mentioned the apartments
where people live on their own or maybe they live
with a family member. We also have um, houses which
might be for three people to share. Um, and then
the home and living branch at the NDIS declares your
(07:51):
eligibility either to live alone or to live with others,
so that eligibility is partly what determines which sort of
housing you can actually apply for. Um, we try to
be a bit flexible though, because often people might want
to live on their own, but they're given a three
person shared outcome. And we then try and figure out
whether we can make that work for them, either from
(08:13):
the point of view of the income that's generated because
of their shared eligibility, and whether that matches the, um,
housing that we've developed Ballot, or for that matter, if
the supports that are in their plan, if they're given
a like an outcome which says you need to share
with two other people, well, they often need to share
their supports with two other people too. So sometimes a
(08:35):
bit of a bit of a puzzle, trying to figure
out whether the support provider can make that support funding
work if they want to live on their own.
S1 (08:42):
Two you gave a great insight into the beginning of
the setup, if you like. What about in terms of
geographically choosing where you'd like to live? I guess I'm
thinking about people who might have, uh, doctors and other
services sort of close to where they are at the moment,
or indeed if they work, that sort of thing. What
about the kind of, uh, choice as far as the
(09:03):
location goes?
S2 (09:04):
Yeah. Well, that's that's a big goal for us, is
to be able to provide housing which is well located
so that people, you know, don't have to spend a
lot of time travelling to things that they might do
day to day, and that could be medical stuff, or
it could be just, um, activities or workplace are involved in.
And the SDI system has what's called a location factor,
(09:25):
which provides certain amounts of money on return depending on
where you live. I think the biggest challenge, though, is
this system is set up so that the private sector
actually funds the housing and then gets paid back over
20 years through the NDIS system. And the big challenge
at the moment, because of the cost of land and
housing development at the moment, is some locations are just
(09:49):
prohibitively expensive. And while some of the location factors, you know,
do make a bit of a a way of getting
sort of more expensive housing or expensive locations found, we're
finding in the market that unfortunately, a lot of the
places where you can build for a decent return on
investment are not exactly in the most, you know, centralised
(10:12):
parts of the major metropolitan centres. But, you know, if
you're willing to live in a place where you've got,
you know, like some people are very keen to live
in regional Victoria. Some people really like living out in
the suburbs. Some people like living in the city, and
sometimes the type of housing that can be built will
be determined by the location. So in the inner city,
(10:33):
you probably have to think about an apartment development, because
then you can get a return on investment for multiple
units on the one block, whereas further out you can
build like smaller scale housing and still make that work financially.
S1 (10:47):
So many things we take into account. Tom. Fascinating. Thank
you so much for explaining that. Really appreciate that and
how people can find out more from your website.
S2 (10:54):
Yeah that's right. It's just ww.com and all of our
contact details are there. Happy to have conversations with people
because it can be more complicated than you want it
to be. And part of our job is to help
people sort of steer their way through into the housing
they need. So very happy to talk to anybody who
might have questions.
S1 (11:14):
Brian. Well thanks today. Thanks, Tom.
S2 (11:15):
All right. Thank you very much for your time.
S1 (11:17):
That is Tom Warsop, who's the community engagement manager for
Guardian Living. Guardian living. Com is the website, as always,
that information up with our show notes.
Tom Warsop is the community engagement manager for Guardian Living.
When I find out a bit about them and the
services that they offer. Tom. Great to meet you. Thank
you for your time.
S2 (00:22):
No worries. Good to be on board with you.
S1 (00:24):
Just a bit about Guardian Living then you offer a
specialised disability accommodation. Yeah.
S2 (00:29):
So Guardian Living has been going for about, um, eight
years now. Um, we were set up specifically to create
housing opportunities for people with disabilities through the NDIS system.
There's a particular part of that system called SDA Specialist
Disability Accommodation. And so that's the area that we specialise in.
S1 (00:48):
And when we talk about accommodation, of course, that's such
an important thing. So much news around homelessness or people
not being able to get into homes. So how does
one qualify to get into an SDA or how does
that kind of side of the equation work?
S2 (01:02):
So SDA is the part of the housing system for
people with disabilities that's funded directly by the NDIS itself.
So what people, um, need to do is they need
to be eligible for the NDIS and have a plan.
The usual process then, is people identify that they want to,
they need a new housing option and so that becomes
(01:24):
a goal in their plan. And then what you do
is you submit what's called a home and living application,
which is actually about determining or describing what sort of
housing you're looking for. And usually then what you'll get
in your plan is some resources, like for OTS who
can actually help to put together a functional assessment around
(01:44):
what particular housing requirements you might need. And that might
be anything from specialist access elements, both physical access elements
and things like communication issues. Um, and it also might
mean why there is a reason why the NDIS should
pay for your housing, rather than you might want to
just have housing from the public housing system or the
(02:05):
general market. So you get a house, home and living
application into the NDIS. You get the resources then to
help to describe what housing supports you might need Aid.
And then what you do is you get a decision
from the application for an SDA specific request. So if
(02:25):
you can determine that you need a specialist housing response
that the NDIS should fund, then an application goes in
and the home living branch then makes a decision about
what sort of SDA you might be qualifying for or
eligible for.
S1 (02:41):
What about the types of disability that people have?
S2 (02:44):
Yeah, so there are different types of disabilities that people
might have. As I said, one of the most obvious
ones is if people have got particular access needs. So
if they're in a wheelchair, for example, and they need
wider doors, if they need support with transferring from their
bed to their chair, they might need, um, capacity for
a ceiling hoist in their bedroom. But if they have got, um,
(03:06):
communication issues, for example, if they've got limited verbal capacity,
we may need to set up specialist ways in which
they can communicate with their support workers, particularly if those
support workers aren't with them in the house where they're
living at the time. So there's a whole range of those.
The other category of SDA, just to mention is what
(03:27):
we call robust housing. So there are four different categories
of housing that are funded through the NDIS system. And
robust housing is built specifically for people who may have
behaviours of concern. So they may be somebody with a
complex autism presentation, for example, and they may need ways
(03:47):
in which the house itself can be made secure and
that security might be for the person themselves or it
might be for their workers. So, for example, a robust
housing option may have exit doors so that there's a
second door out of a room just in case somebody's
behavior is endangering their staff member or endangering themselves. So
(04:08):
there's a range of different SDA housing that you can
be eligible for. And then what we do as an
SDA provider is we build certain types of housing. Either
we build them on the basis that we think there
will be demand for them. But more and more now,
we're hoping to be able to identify what sort of
housing people need in particular and then build to those needs.
S1 (04:30):
Well, it's going to ask you about that, Tom. That's
a great point you make there. Like in terms of
it being, you know, person centred. So it's not like
we've got this. Do you think you can fit in.
You're kind of trying to build or provide what people
are wanting.
S2 (04:44):
Yeah. So when the NDIS set up, as everybody kept
on saying it was, you know, building the airplane while
trying to fly it. So a lot of the initial
work was done about, okay, well, we think we know
what people need. So we build our product and then
what we look for is seeking people who are eligible
for that product. So Guardian living ourselves, we started by
(05:04):
building apartment developments. So that's where you might have a
single apartment living on your own in a big apartment development.
We might have, you know, anywhere between 6 and 10
apartments for people to live in. And then there'll be
an extra apartment in that apartment block, which is staffed
24 hours a day, so that people can live independently
as much as they can, but they can call on
(05:27):
a staff member if they haven't got anybody with them
at the time, and there's an unexpected emergency, or, you know,
they need somebody to help with a particular activity that
wasn't planned.
S1 (05:36):
So it's a kind of a fairly flexible thing. Or
what's your kind of NDIS plan is established with this
accommodation being part of it? That's kind of it sort
of almost indefinitely or until circumstances change.
S2 (05:48):
So people get, um, they get their SDA eligibility and
they're then basically what we'd call a market. They go
out to market to look for something that they can
that will suit them. That's the sort of the formal process.
The SDA eligibility stays with the individual. So they get
that SDA eligibility in their plan. And so they then
(06:10):
can choose like for example, one of our houses. And
then we can we create a lease for them. Their
their leases like any other public housing lease would be.
And then people if they choose to stay on there,
they can stay on there for as long as they like.
And then other people may decide after a little while
that they want to find a different sort of housing
solution so they can take their SDA with them and
(06:33):
actually set up a new lease with another company. And
it's like everything with any lease, there are conditions around
how much notice you have to give if you want
to leave things like that, but primarily it's trying to
set up a system whereby people can find their forever housing,
and if they can find that, and that's what we
have a product that will suit them, then they'll stay
(06:53):
there for as long as they need to. But also,
you know, people's needs change. So they might set up
a lease with us this year and then two years
down the track, they might have benefited from having, you know,
good housing that actually helps support their needs. And they
might find that they want to either move to another
place like anybody else in the community does, so they
(07:13):
can take their SDA eligibility with them and set that
up with somebody else.
S1 (07:17):
Fantastic. What about in terms of the quote unquote living arrangements?
Are you on your own? Can you choose to live
in a group? Uh, if there's two of you as
a couple, if you like. How does all that work?
S2 (07:29):
So the aim is to give people as much choice
in housing as as they as we can. So we
have different types of housing. So I mentioned the apartments
where people live on their own or maybe they live
with a family member. We also have um, houses which
might be for three people to share. Um, and then
the home and living branch at the NDIS declares your
(07:51):
eligibility either to live alone or to live with others,
so that eligibility is partly what determines which sort of
housing you can actually apply for. Um, we try to
be a bit flexible though, because often people might want
to live on their own, but they're given a three
person shared outcome. And we then try and figure out
whether we can make that work for them, either from
(08:13):
the point of view of the income that's generated because
of their shared eligibility, and whether that matches the, um,
housing that we've developed Ballot, or for that matter, if
the supports that are in their plan, if they're given
a like an outcome which says you need to share
with two other people, well, they often need to share
their supports with two other people too. So sometimes a
(08:35):
bit of a bit of a puzzle, trying to figure
out whether the support provider can make that support funding
work if they want to live on their own.
S1 (08:42):
Two you gave a great insight into the beginning of
the setup, if you like. What about in terms of
geographically choosing where you'd like to live? I guess I'm
thinking about people who might have, uh, doctors and other
services sort of close to where they are at the moment,
or indeed if they work, that sort of thing. What
about the kind of, uh, choice as far as the
(09:03):
location goes?
S2 (09:04):
Yeah. Well, that's that's a big goal for us, is
to be able to provide housing which is well located
so that people, you know, don't have to spend a
lot of time travelling to things that they might do
day to day, and that could be medical stuff, or
it could be just, um, activities or workplace are involved in.
And the SDI system has what's called a location factor,
(09:25):
which provides certain amounts of money on return depending on
where you live. I think the biggest challenge, though, is
this system is set up so that the private sector
actually funds the housing and then gets paid back over
20 years through the NDIS system. And the big challenge
at the moment, because of the cost of land and
housing development at the moment, is some locations are just
(09:49):
prohibitively expensive. And while some of the location factors, you know,
do make a bit of a a way of getting
sort of more expensive housing or expensive locations found, we're
finding in the market that unfortunately, a lot of the
places where you can build for a decent return on
investment are not exactly in the most, you know, centralised
(10:12):
parts of the major metropolitan centres. But, you know, if
you're willing to live in a place where you've got,
you know, like some people are very keen to live
in regional Victoria. Some people really like living out in
the suburbs. Some people like living in the city, and
sometimes the type of housing that can be built will
be determined by the location. So in the inner city,
(10:33):
you probably have to think about an apartment development, because
then you can get a return on investment for multiple
units on the one block, whereas further out you can
build like smaller scale housing and still make that work financially.
S1 (10:47):
So many things we take into account. Tom. Fascinating. Thank
you so much for explaining that. Really appreciate that and
how people can find out more from your website.
S2 (10:54):
Yeah that's right. It's just ww.com and all of our
contact details are there. Happy to have conversations with people
because it can be more complicated than you want it
to be. And part of our job is to help
people sort of steer their way through into the housing
they need. So very happy to talk to anybody who
might have questions.
S1 (11:14):
Brian. Well thanks today. Thanks, Tom.
S2 (11:15):
All right. Thank you very much for your time.
S1 (11:17):
That is Tom Warsop, who's the community engagement manager for
Guardian Living. Guardian living. Com is the website, as always,
that information up with our show notes.
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