2017-04-11 P&E Agenda Attachment 1 to Item 1 Housing Needs Assessment

4.        ASSESSMENT OF HOUSING NEEDS

4.1 Housing Needs for Specific Groups
4.1.1       Aged Persons’ Accommodation
Residential Aged Care and Home Care
Provision

The Australian Government provides accreditation and funding to aged care providers in
Australia. Government funding is made available only to approved providers for allocated places
and the allocation of new places is undertaken every 18 months or so (at least since 2008) after a
needs based analysis of aged care provision throughout the country. The analysis has three main
branches:

          Ensuring that the number of aged care places matches growth in the aged population
           using a national provision ratio of:
            o    125 residential and home care places for every 1,000 people aged 70 years of age
                 and over by 2021-22 (consisting of 80 places in a residential setting and 45 places in
                 a home care setting);
          Balancing provision in metropolitan, regional, rural and remote areas;
          Considering people with special needs including:
            o    People from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities;
            o    People from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds;
            o    People who live in rural or remote areas;
            o    People who are financially or socially disadvantaged;
            o    Veterans;
            o    People who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless;
            o    Care-leavers6;
            o    Parents separated from their children by forced adoption or removal;
            o    Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people;
            o    People of a kind (if any) specified in the Allocation Principles. (Australian
                 Government 2016a).
The aged care sector in Australia has adjusted to reforms which have been taking place over the
last 10 years or so. Broadly, the reforms were designed to respond to the changing preferences of
older people and to help the system respond to Australia’s ageing population. Some of these
preferences, expectations and trends were noted in a Productivity Commission report into
Australia’s aged care system released in 2011, including:

          There is an increasing preference for independent living and choice in aged care services.
           Older people told the Commission they wanted to be independent for as long as possible
           and able to choose where they live, which providers they use, how services are delivered
           and able to purchase additional services or live in higher standards of accommodation.


6
    Care-leavers are adults who spent time in care as children – including foster care, residential care or other
arrangement – and are also referred to as ‘forgotten Australians’, ‘former child migrants’ and ‘stolen
generations’. This group can have particular anxiety around aged care given previous experience with
institutional care.




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