What makes a dream home for someone with a disability? Things like complete safety, comfort, privacy, and the opportunity to have more independence.
Conditions that someone without a disability might not consider luxurious, but that are missing from the majority of disability housing across Australia.
Sana Living, together with the Ability Centre and the NDIS made the dream home a reality for Heath, Trevor, Warren and Kevin.
Shortly after the official launch of Sana Living, and the grand opening of our SDA home in Morley in October 2020, these four friends who had been living together in community housing were able to move into one of Perth’s very first SDA homes, provided by Sana Living.
We captured on camera, the four men on the day they moved.
We asked the people who made it happen what the new home would mean for these men; but also, for ALL people living with a disability – and why a move with Sana Living is a move for the better.
(A transcript of the video is below).
Transcript
Michael Keenan, CEO Sana Living : For us it’s been great because we’ve been able to understand the people that we’re building for and that gives us the opportunity to build the best possible home.
For Ability Centre it gives them an opportunity to get access to much better housing for their clients. And I think we all know that the exiting stock of disability housing anywhere in Australia is not particularly good. The advent of Specialist Disability Accommodation allows us to provide much better housing options for people, and Ability Centre’s clients are going to be the first in Western Australia to benefit from that.
Sue Theunissen, Executive GM Community Services, Ability Centre : SDA will benefit ppl with disability by giving them greater independence, enabling them to have more choice and control about where they live and who they live with…
Jacquie Thomson, CEO Ability Centre : It’s such a contemporary, welcoming, modern home, that will provide a great place for people with a disability to have as their home into the future. Now that we’ve got processes sorted out people with Disability across Western Australia will be able to journey through the process with their providers and with organisations like Sana, as they engage with NDIS and get into these sort of homes far more quickly than otherwise they would have been able to.
Michael Keenan : And now people have all the power, and they can go out and find a living option that’s suitable to them. Where they want to live, who they want to live with, how they want to live…
Tara Brian : The people in this home have the ability to access both indoor and environment without any lips on door edges and they can get to the outdoor environment without the assistance of a carer, they’re able to do that independently.
Sue Theunissen: This pilot project has been greatly beneficial to the 4 men who live in this beautiful home. They now have a fully accessible kitchen, they have their own personal bathrooms, they have a mix of personal and private spaces so they can entertain guests and they live with 4 house mates of their choice in a suburb that they have chosen as well.
Michael Keenan: The main beneficiaries – the most important beneficiaries, are the people who are going to be living in these wonderful SDA homes, faster and more efficiently.
Renay Eade – Family Member: My brother Heath is a participant, and he’s recently moved into SDA with Sana Living, and with Ability Centre and is living with his support provider. It’s been a fantastic experience for us, he’s now living in really stunning accommodation, and we’re very happy as a family that that has happened.
Tara Brian : My hopes for the guys moving into this home would be that the house provides an opportunity for them to increase their independence, and to participate more in the day-to-day tasks of being involved in a household.
Jacquie Thomson : Ability Centre, NDIS and Sana Living, all have a common goal, and that is; the best possible life for people with disabilities, and we’ve all got different roles to play in delivering that outcome.
