SIL, SDA, ILO, STA, and MTA: Understanding Your NDIS Home and Living Options
If you are exploring NDIS Home and Living supports, it does not take long before the acronyms start piling up.
SIL. SDA. ILO. MTA.
They all relate to where or how a person lives, but they fund very different things. Understanding those differences is important, particularly when making decisions about where you live, who supports you and which providers you choose.
Here is a simple breakdown.
What is Supported Independent Living (SIL)?
Supported Independent Living, or SIL, is funding for the support you receive in your home. It is not funding for the home itself.
SIL is generally designed for people with higher support needs who require significant assistance or supervision throughout the day.
Support workers may assist with things such as:
personal care
preparing meals
household tasks
building daily living skills
support or supervision throughout the day and overnight.
SIL is commonly delivered in shared living arrangements, although it may also be funded in some circumstances for someone living alone. SIL funding cannot be used for rent, groceries or other ordinary living expenses.
As of 1 July 2026, providers delivering SIL must be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and comply with the new SIL Practice Standards.
What is Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA)?
This is where one of the most common misunderstandings occurs.
SDA is the housing. SIL is the support provided within the home.
Specialist Disability Accommodation is specially designed housing for participants with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs.
Depending on the participant's needs, an SDA property might include features such as wider doorways, wheelchair-accessible spaces, ceiling hoists, home automation or other specialised design features.
Someone may have both SDA and SIL funding.
In that situation:
SDA funding relates to the specialist property
SIL funding relates to the support workers assisting the participant within the home.
SDA funding does not cover personal care or other disability supports within the property, and participants still contribute towards rent and ordinary living costs.
What are Individualised Living Options (ILO)?
Individualised Living Options, or ILO, are designed to create a more individual arrangement around how, where and with whom a person lives.
Rather than starting with a set model of accommodation, ILO begins with the participant.
An ILO arrangement might involve living with a housemate, living with a host, or developing another arrangement that combines formal and informal supports.
ILO funding can support things such as:
exploring and designing a living arrangement
setting up and managing the arrangement
personal care
building independent living skills
household tasks
supplementary supports when required
ongoing monitoring to make sure the arrangement continues to work.
ILO does not pay for the property itself, rent or mortgage repayments, food, utilities or other everyday living costs.
The key difference is flexibility. ILO is intended to be designed around the individual rather than fitting the participant into an existing supported living model.
What is Short-Term Accommodation (STA)?
Short-Term Accommodation, or STA, provides temporary disability support when a participant needs time away from their usual care arrangements.
You may have also heard this called Short Term Respite. The NDIA changed the terminology in 2025, before changing it back to Short-Term Accommodation from 1 July 2026.
STA is generally intended for participants who rely heavily on informal supports, such as family members or carers, and need short periods of alternative support to help make those arrangements sustainable.
It may include:
temporary accommodation
personal care and daily living support
support with meals and everyday activities
disability-related support during the stay.
Under the current rules, STA is not funded for someone who lives alone independently and does not receive significant daily drop-in support from their primary informal supports. Someone who lives alone but still receives substantial daily informal support may still be considered, depending on their circumstances and whether they meet the other funding criteria.
STA is not intended to fund holidays or general travel expenses, and the rules around eligibility and claiming have become more specific over the past 12 to 18 months.
Because of this, participants should check how their plan can be used before booking or committing to a stay. For plan-managed participants, it is also worth confirming the arrangement with their Plan Manager first.
What is Medium-Term Accommodation (MTA)?
Medium-Term Accommodation, or MTA, is temporary accommodation for people who cannot yet move into their longer-term home.
MTA can generally be funded for up to 90 days in specific circumstances.
For example, a participant may need MTA while:
waiting for an SDA property to become available
waiting for home modifications to be completed
transitioning out of hospital
transitioning from a justice setting into an approved longer-term living arrangement.
MTA is not emergency housing and it is not intended to become someone's long-term accommodation.
It also only funds the accommodation itself. Food, utilities and personal care supports are separate.
The bigger decision isn't just where you live
Understanding the funding is important.
But there is another part of choosing Home and Living supports that participants and families should think carefully about:
Who controls the different parts of your support arrangement?
A participant might have one organisation providing their housing or tenancy, SIL supports, Support Coordination, community access and other services.
On the surface, having everything with one provider can seem convenient.
The problem is that it can also create a significant conflict of interest.
What is 'client capture'?
The Independent NDIS Review specifically raised concerns about "client capture", including situations where housing and disability supports are provided by the same organisation. The Review found that these arrangements can make it harder for participants to exercise genuine choice and control over where they live and who provides their supports.
Put simply, you can end up with all your eggs in one basket.
Imagine your accommodation, daily living supports and Support Coordination are all connected to the same provider.
What happens if you are unhappy with one part of that service?
Can you change your SIL provider without affecting your home?
Can your Support Coordinator genuinely recommend a different provider when their own organisation is providing the service?
What happens if you want to change your community access supports but remain in the same property?
The more parts of someone's life that are controlled by one organisation, the more disruptive changing one provider can potentially become.
That is the concern behind client capture.
The NDIS Review identified this specifically within housing and living arrangements, including concerns about closed-system SIL homes where housing and support are tied together.
Keeping your supports separate can be an important safeguard
Wherever practical, our advice is to consider keeping your Home and Living arrangements separate from your other supports, particularly services such as Support Coordination.
That does not mean a provider delivering more than one service is automatically doing something wrong.
There are circumstances where providers deliver both tenancy and SIL, and the current SIL Practice Standards specifically address these arrangements. Where the same provider delivers both, there must be separate tenancy and service agreements, conflicts of interest must be identified and managed, and participants must understand that their tenancy and support arrangements are legally separate.
Participants must also be supported to understand their right to change the provider delivering their SIL supports, in whole or in part, without that automatically determining their tenancy.
But wherever there is a choice, having some independence between the organisations involved can provide an additional safeguard.
It means the person helping you navigate the NDIS does not have a financial interest in which provider you choose.
It means changing one support does not necessarily mean changing everything else.
Most importantly, it helps protect the participant's choice and control.
Questions worth asking before choosing a Home and Living arrangement
Before committing to a provider or property, it is worth asking:
Who owns or controls the property?
Who will provide my daily living supports?
Are the housing provider and support provider the same organisation?
Can I change my support provider without having to move?
Who provides my Support Coordination?
Does anyone involved receive a financial benefit from referring me to another service?
What happens if I want to change only one of my supports?
What do my tenancy and service agreements say about leaving or changing providers?
How does the provider identify and manage conflicts of interest?
These questions can be just as important as deciding whether a particular house or support model looks right.
Your home should still be your choice
SIL, SDA, ILO, STA and MTA all serve different purposes, and the right option will depend on the participant's disability support needs, circumstances and goals.
But Home and Living decisions are about more than funding categories.
They affect where you live, who enters your home, who supports you every day and how much control you have if something is not working.
Participants should be able to understand their options, make informed decisions and change providers without unnecessary barriers.
At Newcastle Social Workers, our role as independent Support Coordinators is to help participants and families understand those options, explore appropriate supports and make decisions without a financial interest in which provider they ultimately choose.
If you are considering your NDIS Home and Living options and aren't sure where to start, get in touch with our team.
