SIL Handbook Part 3: Finding and Touring Homes

Where we are up to

Part 1 explained what Supported Independent Living is and Part 2 dealt with eligibility and the evidence the NDIA reads. This chapter is the part families find hardest, because it is the part nobody controls: finding an actual house with an actual room in it.

The honest starting point is that there is no central register. The NDIA does not run one, no website holds every vacancy, and the good homes often fill through a phone call before anything is listed. That is not a conspiracy, it is what happens when supply is thin and turnover is low.

How the vacancy market really works

A SIL vacancy usually appears for one of three reasons: somebody moved out, a new property came online, or a home changed its mix because a resident's needs changed. The first is unpredictable, the second is scheduled, and the third is invisible from outside.

This has a practical consequence. If you only ask providers what is available today, you are asking about the smallest of the three categories. The better question is what is coming up in the next three to six months, and whether the provider will put you on a list for a home that has not emptied yet.

It also means timing beats searching. Families who start looking the month they need a room are competing on speed against families who registered interest a year ago. If a move is on the horizon at all, start the conversations now, even without a decision. There is no cost to being known to three providers.

Building a shortlist that is actually short

Write down your non-negotiables before you look at a single listing, because the first attractive photo will otherwise rewrite them. Three or four is plenty, and they should be the things that would make you move out again if they were wrong.

For most people the real non-negotiables are: distance from the people who visit, whether the support arrangement can deliver the hours the person needs, the sensory and physical fit of the actual building, and whether the household is a plausible match. Everything else, including how new the kitchen is, is preference.

Then look wider than you want to. A suburb you had not considered with the right house beats the right suburb with the wrong house, and families who hold one postcode too tightly often wait a year for something that never appears. Our guide on what to check about a suburb before you move covers how to assess an unfamiliar area quickly.

One more filter that saves time: ask early whether the home is a shared arrangement or a solo one, and whether that suits. A comparison of SIL and ILO is the right reading if the answer points away from a shared house entirely.

The first tour: look at the ordinary things

Tours are stage-managed, and that is fair enough, so spend your attention on the parts nobody can stage. The state of the shared bathroom. Whether the laundry looks like it is used. Whether there is food in the fridge that somebody chose. Whether the outdoor space has anything in it, or is just grass.

Watch the interaction rather than the interior. Does a worker greet residents by name and get a response. Does anybody in the house look up when you come in. Is there a resident doing something they chose to do, or is the television on for everyone. Ten minutes of this tells you more than the whole floor plan.

Go through the physical detail with the specific person in mind. Doorway widths if a wheelchair is involved, the turning space in the bathroom, whether the bedroom is on the noisy side of the house, where the nearest bathroom is from that bedroom at three in the morning. Our piece on preparing for a first home visit has the practical run sheet.

Ask what time the tour is normally quietest, and then ask to come back at a different hour. A home that is happy for you to visit at five thirty on a weekday is telling you something. A home that is only available at eleven on a Tuesday is also telling you something.

The questions that separate homes

Most tour questions get the same warm answer everywhere. These do not.

• Who is rostered in this house on a Sunday afternoon, and how often does that change?
• What is the staff turnover in this home over the last twelve months?
• Who decides what happens if two residents want different things at the same time?
• How is the tenancy held here, and is it separate from the support agreement?
• What happened the last time a placement in this house did not work out?
• What would we do in the first month if the fit turned out to be wrong?

The last two matter most, because every provider has had a placement fail and only some will talk about it. A straight answer about something that went badly is the strongest signal you will get on a tour. Our longer list is in questions to ask a SIL provider before you sign.

Comparing two homes without guessing

Write your notes the same day, before the two visits blur together, and score the same handful of things for each house rather than writing an impression. Distance from family, the room itself, the household, the roster, the answers on tenancy, and the answers on things going wrong. Six columns, two rows.

Then look at what you scored badly and ask whether it is fixable. A bedroom on the wrong side of the house is not fixable. A roster gap on Sunday afternoons might be. Turnover in one house is a fact about that house; turnover across a provider is a fact about the provider.

If both homes score similarly, choose the one where the household fits, not the one with the better building. People who move for the kitchen move again.

Before you sign, and how to try it first

Ask for a trial. Short term accommodation, a weekend, a few nights in a room that is empty anyway: whatever form it takes, spending time in a house before committing is the single most useful thing available and it is asked for far too rarely. Some homes cannot offer it, and a provider explaining honestly why is different from a provider brushing it off.

Read the two agreements as two separate documents, because that is what they are. The tenancy or occupancy agreement covers your home. The service agreement covers your support. If one organisation holds both, understand what leaving one would mean for the other before you sign either.

Check that the support hours described in conversation appear in writing. A roster of care discussed on a tour and a roster of care in an agreement are not the same thing, and the second one is the only one that survives a staff change.

Part 4 of this handbook covers the first ninety days after moving in, which is where most of the real adjustment happens. In the meantime, our current homes, their areas and their room types are on find a home.