Helensvale · Gold Coast
Home and living
Supported Independent Living is help with everyday life where you live, usually alongside other people. This page explains what SIL actually covers, how it’s funded, and how it differs from SDA, which is the part most people find confusing.
The short answer
Supported Independent Living, usually shortened to SIL, is help with the everyday tasks of living in your own home. It’s the support, not the house.
In practice that means someone there to help with things like personal care, cooking, cleaning, medication, getting to appointments and managing the rhythm of a week. How much support depends entirely on what you need. For some people it’s a few hours a day. For others it’s someone on site around the clock, including overnight.
Most people receiving SIL live in a shared home with one or two others, though not always. What matters is that the support is built around your life rather than a timetable someone else set.
The difference
This is the thing people get tangled in most often, so it’s worth separating clearly. You can have one without the other, and most people do. We cover SDA on our home and living page.
The people who help you day to day. Funded from your Core budget, and it moves with you if you move house.
A specially designed or modified home. Funded from Capital, and only a small number of participants are eligible.
Showering, dressing, medication prompts, and getting to appointments on time.
Cooking, shopping, cleaning and laundry, done with you rather than around you.
Someone there through the night, either sleeping over or awake, depending on what you need.
Work, study, appointments, seeing people, and the ordinary business of a life outside the house.
What's included
Every roster looks different, because it’s built from what you actually need help with. These are the areas it usually covers.
Funding
SIL is funded from your Core budget, under assistance with daily life. It isn’t a flat amount. It’s worked out from what your week actually needs.
That happens through something called a roster of care. It sets out who supports you, when, for how long, and whether that support is shared with anyone else in the house. Your provider usually helps put it together, and it goes to the NDIA as part of working out what’s reasonable and necessary for you.
If you share a home, some support is shared too. Two people who both need help at dinner time can be supported by one worker, and the cost is split between them. That’s why the number of people in a house affects the funding, and why the mix of people matters as much as the building does.
Your SDA funding, if you have any, sits separately in Capital and pays for the dwelling itself.
Your rights
This one deserves saying plainly, because it worries people and it’s rarely explained.
Changing your support provider should not cost you your home. Since July 2026, the standards that registered SIL providers work under specifically require the housing relationship and the support relationship to be kept apart, so that ending one doesn’t automatically end the other.
It matters because that fear is what keeps people in arrangements that aren’t working. If you’re unhappy with the support but frightened of losing the house, you aren’t really choosing anything.
You’re also entitled to a say in the ordinary things. Who you live with, how your day runs, what happens in your own home. Those aren’t favours a provider grants you.
Recent changes
From 1 July 2026, any provider delivering SIL has to be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. It’s no longer optional.
Providers who were already delivering SIL without being registered have until 1 October 2026 to apply, and delivering it unregistered after that carries serious penalties.
A new set of standards came in at the same time. They cover things like your say in decisions about your own life, safety in your home, and the consistency of the people supporting you.
If you’re choosing a SIL provider right now, this is worth checking. You can look any provider up on the public register and see whether they actually hold Supported Independent Living. It takes about two minutes.
Before you decide
Worth asking whoever you’re considering, us included. SIL is a bigger commitment than most supports, so take your time over it.
Since July 2026 it's required, and it's checkable on the public register in about two minutes.
The mix of people in a house shapes daily life more than the building ever does.
Ask how the housing and the support are separated, and what changes if you end one.
Ask whether it's a sleepover or an awake shift, and whether it's the same person regularly.
You should be part of building it. Ask to see it, and ask what happens when your needs change.
Ask how you raise it, who hears it, and how quickly things actually change afterwards.
Being straight
We’re registered for Supported Independent Living, and you can check that on the public register rather than taking our word for it.
What we’d rather not do is post a list of homes and vacancies to catch your attention. SIL is someone’s home and daily life, not a listing, and the right answer depends entirely on what you need and who else is involved.
So here’s the honest version. Tell us what you’re looking for, when, and for whom. We’ll tell you straight whether we can help. If we can’t, we’ll say so and point you towards someone who might.
That’s a slower answer than a vacancy list. It’s also the one that doesn’t waste your time.
FAQs
SIL is the support, SDA is the housing. SIL pays for the people who help you day to day and comes from your Core budget. SDA pays for a specially designed or modified home and comes from Capital. You can have SIL without SDA, and most people do.
Usually, but not always. SIL is most often delivered in a shared home because some support can be shared, which makes it work within a plan. Living alone with SIL funding does happen, but it needs to be justified by what you actually need.
Through a roster of care, which sets out who supports you, when, and for how long across a normal week. It goes to the NDIA as part of deciding what’s reasonable and necessary. Your provider usually helps build it, and you should be part of that.
You should have a genuine say. Who you share a home with affects daily life more than almost anything else, and the standards SIL providers work under specifically cover your involvement in decisions like this. Ask any provider how they handle it.
You shouldn’t. Since July 2026, registered SIL providers are required to keep the housing relationship separate from the support relationship, so ending one doesn’t automatically end the other. Ask any provider to explain how that works in your situation.
Not quite. Group home describes a building and an older way of doing things. SIL describes funded support, which can be delivered in all sorts of housing. The distinction matters, because the support is yours and it should follow you.
It usually helps. A provider can help you think through what a normal week actually needs before a roster of care is put together, and that conversation tends to be more useful before the funding is set than after.
Here to help
Whether you’re only starting to think about it or you’ve got a plan and a timeline, we’re happy to talk it through. We support participants across the Gold Coast, and you’ll get an honest answer about whether we’re the right fit.
Support coordinator? Send a referral and we’ll be in touch.
Loving Hearts Care Group is a registered NDIS provider, ABN 99 674 548 862, registered for Supported Independent Living. Our registration is listed as Approved on the NDIS Provider Register and is in force until 27 March 2029.
