Responsibility: Australian, state and territory governments
Joint Response: Accept in principle
Status: Further work required
What has been achieved to date
Work is progressing to identify responsibilities for planning and coordinating the transition of people with disability from service or institutional settings directly into safe and appropriate housing. Continued efforts are being undertaken to ensure that people with disability do not ‘exit into homelessness’ from government services, including from health services, mental health services, correctional facilities or out of home care.
The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) provides a network of Health and Justice Liaison Officers to support participants when they are ready to leave hospital and justice settings. The NDIA has recently updated the Justice Operational Guideline to remove references to ‘release dates’ for consideration of transitional supports in custody. Further updates will be made to clarify externally how the NDIA makes decisions in relation to transitional support for participants in custody. The guideline was released on the NDIS website in January 2025.
All governments remain committed to working together to progress this recommendation.
What the Disability Royal Commission said in the final report
The Australian Government (including the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)) and state and territory governments should commit to a policy of ‘no leaving into homelessness’ for people with disability.
The Australian Government (including the NDIA) and state and territory governments should establish or nominate a lead agency with responsibility for planning and coordinating the transition of people with disability from service or institutional settings (including health services, mental health services, correctional facilities, and out-of-home care) directly into safe and appropriate housing.
The lead agency should be the NDIA when the person is a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participant (consistent with the role of the NDIS under Applied Principles and Tables of Support). If the person is not an NDIS participant, the lead agency should be the agency responsible for the service or institutional setting at the time the person leaves.
The role of the lead agency should include:
- developing and implementing individual plans for people with disability leaving service or institutional settings to identify housing, services and supports for a successful transition into secure housing
- ensuring supports can be put in place before a person with disability leaves the service or institutional setting
- coordinating the implementation of the plan until the person with disability has successfully transitioned to safe and appropriate housing.
Joint Government response July 2024
The Australian Government and state and territory governments are committed to working collaboratively to support people with disability leaving institutional settings into safe and appropriate housing. Part of this work will be determining if nominating a lead agency or agencies is the appropriate mechanism for implementing this recommendation.
All governments recognise that continued, focused and coordinated work is required across systems to ensure people with disability do not ‘leave into homelessness’ from health services, mental health services, correctional facilities, and out-of-home care.
Disability Ministers will work together in 2024 to identify responsibilities for planning and coordinating the transition of people with disability from service or institutional settings directly into safe and appropriate housing. All governments will also continue working together to leverage and implement objectives and priorities under the new National Housing and Homelessness Plan 2024-2034 to support better housing outcomes and reduce rates of homelessness for people with disability.
More recommendations
View progress on other recommendations made by the Royal Commission.