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Disability housing scheme hijacked by spruikers and cowboys
An ABC Four Corners investigation into specialist disability accommodation (SDA), this week, revealed what I and others have been saying for some time: SDA has been hijacked, writes Goro Gupta, founder and CEO of Ethical Property Investments.
Entire housing estates filled with empty disability housing, mum and dad investors left broke after being sold a dream that was never real, and across the country, over 1,000 SDA properties sitting vacant. That’s not what SDA was designed for.
The whole point of SDA when it was set up in 2016, was to get people with disabilities out of group homes and aged care facilities and into proper specially designed homes that gave them dignity, independence, and a chance to be part of a community. Done right, it changes lives.
The reality is very different with too many homes built where land is cheap, not where people want to live. On paper they comply. In reality, they don’t suit anyone’s needs. They’re not close to shops, services, family or places where people want to build a life. It’s hard to explain that compliance doesn’t equal demand, and no amount of sales spin can undo a bad location.
This isn’t about too much investment. It’s about the wrong kind of investment. Unless we call it out, we’re going to lose what SDA was meant to deliver.
Developers are flying blind. There are thousands of Australians with SDA written into their plans, but no clear map of where or what they need. That’s why you see whole estates going up in the outer suburbs while people in inner and middle-ring areas are still waiting. The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has to fix this. We need demand mapping that’s granular; down to postcode or local government area with real-time data matching actual needs. Until that happens, the wrong houses will keep being built in the wrong places, and families will keep getting burnt.
The current pricing rules encourage clustering on city fringes. Returns look better on paper, so developers pile into those markets. That’s why we’ve ended up with what I call disability ghettos; whole streets with multiple SDA houses no one wants to live in. It’s time to stop rewarding clustering and start incentivising housing in undersupplied areas. Funding ratios need to reflect how people want to live, not formulas that force people into groupings they didn’t choose. There needs to be clarity on design categories like improved liveability instead of leaving providers and investors in limbo.
Too many projects are developer-led rather than participant-led. That’s backwards. Participants and families should be at the centre of planning from day one. Providers need to be brought in before a house is built, not called in at the end to tenant something unsuitable. Quality means more than ticking compliance boxes. It means homes that are functional, accessible, and truly liveable. If you wouldn’t want your own family living there, don’t build it.
Spruikers and brokers aren’t regulated. They don’t answer to anyone. Providers are left holding the bag, copping calls from investors promised the world and instead were handed an empty house. We need stronger checks on who’s allowed to promote SDA as an investment opportunity. This sector only survives if we see ourselves as custodians, not speculators, naming the bad actors, pushing back on the inflated sales pitches, and showing what best practice looks like.
SDA was never meant to be a mass-market play. It was never meant to create disability ghettos. It was meant to change lives. Done properly, it still can. Build homes in the right locations with the right design, where participants thrive and families breathe easier.
SDA isn’t broken beyond repair, but it will be if we let spruikers, brokers, and speculators define it. We need leadership, honesty, and accountability. If you’re an investor, do your due diligence. If you’re a provider, put participants first. If you’re a policymaker, fix the data and the incentives. The NDIA must open up the data. Providers must call out bad practice. Investors must stop taking sales pitches at face value. As a sector, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Identifying a reputable SDA provider should be the cornerstone of the research any investor does, not just taking the word of a flashy property spruiker.
SDA only works when we treat it for what it truly is; not a property scheme, but a social contract. It’s about humans in homes, not bodies in houses.
