The Victorian Government is currently shaping its next State Disability Plan and the Victorian Autism Plan.
In Council to Homeless Persons submission to this process, we reported that the SHS is already supporting a large proportion of people with disability, who are more likely to experience homelessness than Victorians without disability. However, the service system is not explicitly designed to be accessible and inclusive of people with disability.
Proactive frontline workers, a small number of dedicated programs, and a system where some flexibility is possible means that many people with disability can get the support they need. But changes are needed to ensure the system is adequately resourced to be accessible and inclusive for all people with disability.
CHP urges that the next five-year State Disability Plan includes actions to reduce the overrepresentation of people with disability in homelessness. This means targeted actions to prevent people with disability from entering homelessness, including ensuring existing initiatives are accessible and inclusive.
It means expanding responses to crisis, ensuring agencies have access to the expertise and resources required to effectively support people with disability. It means investing in a massive expansion of the social housing system, recognising that it is a vital safety net for many people with disability.
CHP recommends the State Disability Plan and Victorian Autism Plan 2027 – 2031 make the following investments and actions.
Recommendation 1: Review and reform SRS including a plan to transition residents into alternative, secure, independent, and supportive accommodation
Recommendation 2: Resource lived experience programs targeting people with disability with experience of homelessness
Recommendation 3: Recruit people with disability for existing and new housing and homelessness advisory groups within Homes Victoria and Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, and proactively ensure representation of people with psychosocial disability
Recommendation 4: Develop a Homelessness Prevention and Early Intervention Action Plan, including a focus on and representation of people with disability
Recommendation 5: Expand initiatives to prevent homelessness and resource them to be accessible and formally partner with disability advocacy organisations
Recommendation 6: Expand Supportive Housing programs as part of a Housing First uplift
Recommendation 7: Increase funding to SHS agencies to provide comprehensive crisis response to ensure all people with disability get the support they need
Recommendation 8: Review crisis accommodation design and funding guidelines to enhance accessibility and inclusion
Recommendation 9: Provide additional funding to SHS agencies to support people with disability
Recommendation 10: Fund a network of disability advisors within the SHS to provide secondary consults and convene regional communities of practice
Recommendation 11: Build 80,000 social homes over the next decade to lift Victoria to the national proportion of social housing