Imagine if you were charged 50% of your income every week, on top of rent, for unspecified, unverifiable bills and 'living costs' that you never got to see evidence of.

It seems unethical, right?

But this is the reality of NDIS participants who live in Supported Independent Living, due to the lack of protective regulations in place.

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For example, under the Disability Support Pension, an individual may receive $546.75 per week including rent assistance and an energy supplement. Under current guidelines, a provider can then charge 50% of the person's income for food and utilities, which comes out to $273.38 per week. Rent is not included, and therefore is charged in addition to this amount.

The majority of agencies that do this limit the purchase of food, assigning participants a 'budget'. The limit a participant can spend on food is often capped at $100. This means that these services are arguing that each person with disability costs $173.38 in utilities alone each week, but that's factually not true. This means they are claiming the household bills per person quarterly are around $2253.88, an exorbitant amount that far exceeds the national average. In this way, private disability companies take advantage of participants, and force them into poverty.

Charging this amount is especially unnecessary given the generous funds the NDIS already pays to these organisations for disability specific costs that are not related to rent or everyday living.

Despite this, providers are currently under no obligation to provide evidence of these living costs, even though they are charging for them!

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We call on the NDIS to put regulations in place that ensure that

> Providers cannot charge excessive, unreasonable amounts for bills, food and living costs

> Providers must justify and provide evidence of any living costs they charge for

> Participants are not charged for electricity and water use that not due to their own use. For example support worker heating and cooling use, costs from running staff facilities, offices and showers on site etc 

Please sign this petition to tell disability providers it's not okay to take advantage of others. Help to put safeguards in place for people with disability living in supported living today.