Daily routine and personal care
Showering, dressing, meals and medication, done the way you prefer and at the time you prefer, by workers who know you.
Accommodation · Supported Independent Living
Supported Independent Living (SIL) in Melbourne's south-east. Homes, not facilities.
Supported Independent Living (SIL) is the paid support that helps you live in your own home, shared or alone: the morning routine, the cooking, the medication, the person there overnight. Here is how it works and where we have a room.
NDIS support item: Supported Independent Living (registration group 0138 from 1 July 2026, formerly 0115 Assistance with Daily Life Tasks in a Group or Shared Living Arrangement); Core budget, Home and Living
What SIL is, and what it is not
Supported Independent Living, usually shortened to SIL, is help with the everyday tasks of living in a home: getting up and showered, cooking and shopping, taking medication on time, keeping on top of the house and having someone there overnight. It is funded for people who need a lot of that help every day, most often in a shared home with one to four housemates, though it can also be funded for someone living alone.
SIL pays for the support workers, not the building. Your rent, food and bills are yours, paid from your own income the way they would be anywhere else. If the house itself needs to be purpose-built for your disability, that is Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA), a separate budget that can sit alongside SIL. If you need a shorter stay while something else is sorted, look at short term accommodation or medium term accommodation instead.
Newdawn has run SIL homes since 2019 and is a registered NDIS provider. Our homes are ordinary houses in ordinary streets: a four-bedroom house in Pakenham, a five-bedroom home in Traralgon, and in Queensland a purpose-built Robust home in Morayfield. We also support people in homes they already rent or own. The support team is rostered around the people in the house, not the other way around.
What is included
What a SIL roster covers
Everything here is paid from the SIL line in your Core budget. The exact mix is written into your roster of care and reviewed with you.
Learning to do more yourself
Cooking a meal, budgeting, using public transport, managing appointments. Support that steps back as you step up.
Overnight support
Active overnight or sleepover staff depending on your roster, so there is always someone in the house if something happens at 3 am.
Behaviour support in practice
Workers trained in your behaviour support plan, with a practitioner from our positive behaviour support team on hand.
Getting out of the house
Work, study, sport, faith and family, with a worker alongside when you need one and not when you do not.
Health kept on track
GP and specialist appointments, scripts, and our community nurses visiting when a plan calls for clinical care.
Funding, in plain English
How SIL is funded
SIL sits in the Core budget of your plan, under Home and Living. The NDIA funds it only after a home and living request, which asks for evidence of what support you need across a week: a roster of care from the provider, reports from your occupational therapist and others, and a clear statement of your goals. A support coordinator usually pulls this together with you.
The amount is based on the hours of support shared across the house, the ratio of workers to housemates, and whether overnight staff are awake or asleep. Higher-intensity support is funded at a higher hourly rate. From 1 July 2026 SIL has its own registration group and support items in the NDIS Pricing Schedule, and every provider delivering it must be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. Newdawn is registered.
SIL does not pay rent, food, utilities or household items. In a Newdawn home you sign a tenancy or occupancy agreement for the room and a separate service agreement for the support, so you can change one without losing the other. Both are in plain English and we go through them with you before you sign. Our funding guide explains how Core works.
SIL price limits are set in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits and change each July. Ask us or check the NDIS website for the current figures.
Read more: what each NDIS budget pays for and how plan management affects your choices.
How it works
From enquiry to moving in
- 01
Tell us what you need
Call 03 5998 0717 or send a referral. We ask about support needs, location, housemates and timing, and tell you honestly whether we have a suitable room.
- 02
Visit and meet
You visit the home, meet the housemates and the team, and stay for a meal or an afternoon. Compatibility matters more than anything on a form.
- 03
Roster and funding
We draft a roster of care with you and your coordinator, and support the home and living request to the NDIA if your plan does not yet fund SIL.
- 04
Move in and settle
A transition plan covers the first weeks: familiar routines, medication, GP handover, and regular check-ins with you and your family.
Close to home
Homes in the south-east and Gippsland
Our head office is in Cranbourne, and our Victorian SIL homes are along the corridor out of it: Pakenham House, a four-bedroom home that is currently full, and the Home in Traralgon, a five-bedroom home with 24/7 support that has a room available now. People we support come to us from Clyde North, Officer, Berwick, Narre Warren, Dandenong and Frankston, often via the discharge teams at Casey Hospital in Berwick, Dandenong Hospital, Frankston Hospital or Latrobe Regional Hospital in Traralgon. Current vacancies are listed on our accommodation page.
We also deliver SIL in homes people already live in across Casey, Cardinia and Greater Dandenong. In Queensland our Caboolture office runs the Morayfield Robust SDA home and SIL across Moreton Bay, and our West Perth office runs the same model in Western Australia.
Head office
Cranbourne, Victoria 3977
Offices in Caboolture QLD and West Perth WA
03 5998 0717, 24/7
Support in 17 languages and Auslan
All our locations Questions we get asked
Straight answers.
If yours is not here, call and ask. It is what we are for.
SIL vs SDA: can you have both?
Yes, and many people do. SIL pays for the support workers in your home. SDA pays for the building itself when it has been designed or modified for your disability. They are separate budgets with separate providers, and you can have SIL without SDA (most SIL homes are ordinary rentals) or SDA without SIL if your support comes another way. Our Morayfield Robust home is an example of both together.
Is Newdawn a registered SIL provider?
Yes. From 1 July 2026 every provider delivering SIL must be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and audited against the NDIS Practice Standards; unregistered providers had until 1 October 2026 to apply or stop. Newdawn has been registered since 2019, so nothing changed for the people we support. You can check any provider on the Commission's public register before you sign.
Do I pay rent in a SIL home?
Yes. SIL funds support, not housing, so you pay rent for your room plus a share of food and utilities, usually from the Disability Support Pension and Commonwealth Rent Assistance. We tell you the figures before you visit, and the tenancy agreement is separate from the support agreement so you are not locked into one by the other. If anything changes, you hear it from us first.
Can I choose my housemates?
As far as possible, yes. Before anyone moves in we arrange visits and a shared meal, and we talk with existing housemates about who they would live well with. We look at routines, noise, interests and support needs. If a match is not working after you move in, we say so and help you look at alternatives rather than leaving things to fester.
How many hours of support will I have?
It depends on your roster of care, which sets out the support across the week for the whole house, including overnight. Some homes have one worker to two or three housemates during the day and an active overnight worker; others have one-to-one hours for specific tasks. We go through the roster with you line by line, and it is reviewed when your needs change.
Can I get SIL if I live alone or with family?
Yes. The NDIA can fund SIL for a person living alone when the evidence supports it, and we deliver support into homes people already rent or own. If you are moving out of the family home for the first time, we can help you build an individual living arrangement or look at a shared home, whichever fits your goals and your plan. See how the NDIS works.
What happens if my support needs change?
The roster of care is reviewed with you, and if the change is significant we help you ask the NDIA for a plan variation with the evidence it needs. If you need more clinical input we bring in our community nurses or behaviour support practitioners. If a home no longer suits you, we help you find one that does, including with another provider.
How long does it take to move in?
It varies. If a room is available and your plan already funds SIL, a visit, roster and transition plan can be arranged within a few weeks. If your plan needs a home and living request first, the NDIA decision takes longer and we cannot promise a date. We give you a realistic timeline at the first call and update you as things move.
Ready to start
Make a referral Ask about the room in Traralgon, or about SIL where you live.
Call 03 5998 0717, answered 24/7, or send an enquiry. Our intake team replies within minutes in business hours and can tell you straight away whether we have a home that fits.
Get in touch
Tell us what you need. We'll take it from there.
Whether you're exploring NDIS for the first time, looking for a support worker, or asking about one of our homes, we'll reply within a few minutes.
- Response within a few minutes
- No call centre. Real people.
- Confidential. Always.
Prefer to call? 03 5998 0717