What SIL Funding Does Not Pay For

The short answer

SIL funding pays for the workers who support you in your home. It does not pay for the home, the food, the power bill, the furniture, the therapy or the trip into town. Those costs are real and they are yours, and most of them are met from a different part of your plan or from your own income.

This trips up more families than any other part of supported living, and usually at the worst moment: after a place has been offered and before anyone has added up what the week actually costs. The support hours are the visible number. The rest is the part nobody mentions on the tour.

Rent and the roof itself

SIL is a support payment, not a housing payment. Whatever your support arrangement looks like, someone still has to pay to occupy the building, and that is you, from the Disability Support Pension or whatever income you have.

If the house is a Specialist Disability Accommodation dwelling, the SDA payment goes to the housing provider and you still pay a reasonable rent contribution on top. If it is an ordinary rental house, you pay ordinary rent under a residency agreement. Our piece on who pays for what in SIL sets out the rent, board and plan split in detail.

A practical warning about the word board. Some homes charge board that bundles rent, food and household consumables into one weekly figure. That is legitimate, but ask for it broken down before you sign anything. A bundled figure hides what you are paying for and makes it impossible to compare two homes.

The everyday costs everybody has

The NDIS does not fund the costs of daily life that a person would have whether or not they had a disability. That principle sits in the NDIS Operational Guidelines and it decides most of this list.

So the following come out of your own money: groceries and takeaway, electricity, gas, water usage, internet and phone, contents insurance, streaming subscriptions, haircuts, clothes, a pet, birthday presents, and the household share of cleaning products and toilet paper.

Furniture is the one people forget. Your bedroom is usually yours to furnish. Some homes come with a bed and a wardrobe, some do not, and the difference is several thousand dollars in the first fortnight. Ask specifically what is in the room before you move in, and ask it about that room, not about the house in general.

Things that look like support but are funded from somewhere else

Several supports feel like part of living in the house but are drawn from other budgets. Knowing which is which stops you burning Core funding on something that had its own line all along.

Therapy. Occupational therapy, speech pathology, physiotherapy and behaviour support sit in Capacity Building, not in your SIL line. A therapist visiting the house does not draw down your support hours.

Assistive technology and home modifications. Hoists, shower chairs, communication devices, ramps and bathroom changes sit in Capital. They need their own assessment and their own quote, and the timeline is longer than most people expect.

Transport. Getting to a medical appointment or to a class is a transport question, not a SIL one. Our guide to what NDIS transport funding covers explains which of the three levels applies and what a provider can charge for driving you.

Community access. The hours a worker spends with you at the pool, the shops or a group are usually claimed as community participation, from Core but not from your SIL roster. If those hours are being taken out of the house roster instead, the house is thinner than it looks on paper.

So what does SIL funding actually buy

It buys worker time in the home, priced against the shared roster rather than against you individually. It covers help with personal care, medication prompting and administration, meal preparation, cleaning and laundry alongside you, and the overnight arrangement, whether that is a sleepover or an awake shift.

The amount is set by a roster of care, which is a written pattern of who is on shift, when, and for how many people. Our explanation of how a roster of care is built covers how the ratio changes the hourly rate and therefore how far the funding stretches.

The prices themselves come from the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits, which the NDIA republishes and which changes. Any figure a provider quotes you should be traceable to that document on the day they quote it.

Where households get caught

Three places, consistently.

The first is the gap between an offer and a move. Bond, first fortnight of rent, furniture and a new set of household goods land in the same week, and none of it is plan funded. Ask for the total move-in cost in writing before you accept a room.

The second is assuming SIL covers the daytime. A lot of SIL rosters are built around mornings, evenings and overnights, with the middle of the day either empty or funded from a different line. If your week has a hole in it at 11am on a Tuesday, that is a planning question to raise now rather than after the move.

The third is a plan that runs down faster than expected because one of these costs got charged against the wrong budget. If that is happening, ask your provider for a line by line statement and read it against the categories above. Our piece on making an NDIS budget last covers what to do when the arithmetic stops working.

Funding decisions sit with the NDIA and turn on the evidence in front of them, so no provider can promise a particular outcome. What a provider can do is tell you honestly, before you move, which costs will be yours.

Frequently asked questions

Does SIL funding pay my rent?

No. SIL is a support payment that pays for worker time. Rent is paid by you from your own income, usually the Disability Support Pension, under a residency or tenancy agreement. If the dwelling is Specialist Disability Accommodation, the SDA payment goes to the housing provider and you still pay a rent contribution on top of it.

Who pays for food in a supported home?

You do. Groceries are an everyday living cost that the NDIS does not fund, whether you shop for yourself, shop with a worker, or contribute to a shared household kitty. A support worker helping you plan meals and cook is funded; the ingredients are not. If a home charges board that includes food, ask for the food component to be shown separately.

Is therapy included in SIL funding?

No. Occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology and specialist behaviour support are funded from Capacity Building supports, which is a separate part of your plan. A therapist can visit you at home without touching your SIL hours. If someone tells you therapy has to come out of your support hours, ask them to show you where in the plan that is written.

What about equipment like a hoist or a shower chair?

Assistive technology sits in the Capital part of a plan and needs its own assessment, usually by an occupational therapist, plus a quote. It is not part of SIL funding, and the approval timeline is often months rather than weeks, so start it well before a move rather than after.

How do I find out what a specific home will cost me?

Ask the provider for a written breakdown covering rent, any board, what is included in that board, what the room comes furnished with, and the household costs you will be asked to share. Ask for the move-in total separately, including bond. A provider that cannot put those numbers on paper is telling you something useful.