Individualised Living Options (ILO) Explained: The NDIS Support Nobody Tells You About

Most people arrive at NDIS home care and living conversations believing there are two options: stay with family, or move into a shared supported house. That framing is so common it barely registers as a framing at all — it just feels like the choice.

Individualised Living Options exist precisely because that binary fails a lot of people. ILO is the NDIS support designed for everyone in between: people who need real support but for whom a shared SIL house is the wrong shape, people with strong informal networks worth building on, people who’ve tried group living and know with certainty it doesn’t work for them.

It’s also the least understood support in the home and living suite, under-requested and frequently misexplained by professionals who should know better. So here’s the whole thing: how it works, what the two funded stages actually do, the four main models, and the honest limits.

What ILO actually is

ILO funds a living arrangement designed around one person, rather than a service delivered to them.

That distinction is the entire point. In SIL, a provider runs a house with a roster, and you join it. In ILO, you design the arrangement first — who you live with, where, what support looks like, who provides it — and the NDIS funds the supports that make it work.

Critically, ILO funds support, not housing. Like SIL, it doesn’t pay rent. You still need somewhere to live: a private rental, social housing, a home you own, a room in someone else’s house, or occasionally an SDA dwelling.

What ILO does fund is the scaffolding that holds an individual arrangement up — and that scaffolding is often surprisingly light. A person might have a co-resident who lives with them for reduced rent in exchange for agreed overnight presence, a few hours of paid drop-in support a week, and an on-call arrangement for emergencies. That package can cost considerably less than a full SIL roster while producing a life the person genuinely chose.

The two stages: exploration, then support

ILO is funded in two distinct parts, and confusing them causes most of the delays we see.

Stage 1: Exploration and design

This stage funds someone to sit with you and design the arrangement. It typically runs over several months and produces a documented plan describing where you’ll live, who with, what support you’ll receive, from whom, and how the risks are managed.

Exploration and design funding is a separate line in your plan and is requested before the support itself. It exists because designing an individual arrangement is genuine work: mapping your existing relationships, identifying potential co-residents or hosts, testing options, negotiating with the people involved, and building the safeguards. Done well, it’s the difference between an arrangement that lasts a decade and one that collapses in four months.

The most common ILO mistake is trying to skip this stage — proposing a specific arrangement straight to the NDIA without the design work behind it. Requests structured that way tend to come back with questions nobody has answers to.

Stage 2: The ILO support package

Once the design is complete, funding for the ongoing supports is requested: the paid support hours, the payments to a host or co-resident, the coordination that keeps the arrangement running, and the review mechanism that catches problems early.

ILO packages are typically funded at one of several levels reflecting how much support the arrangement requires, and — unlike SIL’s hour-by-hour roster of care — the funding is deliberately more flexible in how it’s used. That flexibility is ILO’s great advantage and its main risk: arrangements without clear documentation drift.

The four main ILO models

Most arrangements are a variation on one of these, or a blend.

Host arrangement. You live in someone else’s home — an individual or a family — who provides agreed daily support as part of the arrangement. Similar in spirit to long-term shared care or homeshare models. Works beautifully when the match is right; depends entirely on finding the right host, which is why the design stage matters.

Co-residency. Someone lives with you in your home, usually with subsidised or free rent in exchange for agreed support — commonly overnight presence and some daily assistance. Popular with younger participants and people with moderate support needs who want their own tenancy.

Living alone with drop-in support. Your own place, with scheduled support hours and an on-call arrangement for the rest. Suits people who are largely independent but need reliable structure and a safety net.

Living with another participant. Two or three people who chose each other share a home, with support designed around the group. The difference from SIL is authorship: the residents formed the household, rather than being matched into an existing one by a provider.

Who ILO genuinely suits — and who it doesn’t

We’d rather be honest here than enthusiastic, because ILO is oversold in some corners of the sector.

ILO tends to work well when:

• Support needs are moderate rather than constant and intensive
• The person has clear preferences about how they want to live and can express them, with or without support
• There’s an existing network — friends, extended family, a community, a faith group — to build on
• Shared supported living has been tried and genuinely didn’t work, particularly where interpersonal stress destabilises the person
• The person and their circle can commit time to the design stage

ILO strains when:

• Support needs are very high, medical, or require trained staff around the clock
• The person is isolated with no natural network to draw on, making host or co-resident matching slow and difficult
• Nobody has capacity to do the design work or maintain the arrangement afterward
• The arrangement depends on a single individual with no backup, which makes it fragile by construction

That last point deserves emphasis. The most common failure mode in ILO is key person risk. An arrangement resting entirely on one co-resident or one host works right up until that person gets sick, moves interstate, has a baby or simply changes their mind. Good ILO design builds in backup from the start — a second paid worker who knows the person, a documented contingency, a circle of support with more than one member in it.

ILO compared with the alternatives

Note that these aren’t rivals so much as different shapes. Plenty of people move between them across a lifetime — family home, then a SIL house, then ILO as skills and confidence grow. Others go the other way as needs increase. Requesting one now doesn’t foreclose the others later.

How to pursue ILO

1. Name it specifically with your Local Area Coordinator or support coordinator. Ask for exploration and design funding by name — vague requests about “housing options” produce vague plans.
2. Map your network honestly before the design stage begins. Who’s in this person’s life? Who might realistically be a host or co-resident? Who would be a backup? The answer shapes what’s possible.
3. Use the design stage properly. Don’t rush to a solution. Test options, meet potential hosts, run trial periods. Design time is cheap; failed arrangements are expensive.
4. Document the arrangement in writing — what each party provides, what’s expected, what happens if someone can’t continue, how disputes get resolved. Warm relationships still need clear agreements, and clear agreements protect the warmth.
5. Build the safeguards in. This is significant enough that it deserves its own treatment — see our guide on safeguards in independent living.
6. Schedule real reviews. Six-monthly at minimum, with the person’s own view at the centre. Arrangements drift quietly; reviews catch drift early.

The money and the agreements

ILO’s flexibility creates a practical question families ask late and should ask early: how does the money actually move, and what gets written down?

Payments to hosts and co-residents. Where an arrangement involves someone living with you and providing agreed support, they’re typically compensated — through reduced or free rent, a direct payment from the ILO package, or both. This needs documenting properly. An arrangement where a friend “just helps out” in exchange for cheap rent, with nothing written, feels warm and generous right up to the first disagreement about what was promised. Clear agreements protect relationships rather than diminishing them.

Housing costs remain yours. ILO funds support; you still pay rent, utilities and food from your own income — usually the Disability Support Pension, often with Commonwealth Rent Assistance. If you’re in a co-residency arrangement in your own tenancy, be clear about who is named on the lease and what happens to the tenancy if the co-resident leaves.

Tax and employment questions. Where a host or co-resident receives payments, there can be tax, income-reporting or Centrelink implications for them. This catches people out. Encourage anyone entering a host or co-residency arrangement to get their own advice before committing — it’s a five-minute conversation that prevents a very awkward one later.

What the agreement should cover. At minimum: what support each party provides and when; what the compensation is; notice periods on both sides; how the arrangement is reviewed and by whom; what happens if the host or co-resident is unwell, travelling or needs to end the arrangement; and how disagreements get resolved. None of this is cynical. It’s the paperwork that lets a good relationship stay a good relationship.

If ILO isn’t right, that’s information too

Some people finish the exploration stage and conclude that a well-matched shared home is actually what they want — the company, the staffing depth, the built-in backup when someone’s unwell. That’s not a failed exploration. That’s an informed decision, which is the whole point of funding the design work in the first place.

We deliver Supported Independent Living across NSW and can talk you through how shared arrangements compare with individual ones for your situation — including, honestly, when we think ILO would serve you better than anything we offer. Call 1300 271 824 if you’d like to think it through with someone who does this every week.

General information about NDIS supports. ILO funding levels, stages and requirements are set by the NDIA and change periodically — confirm current arrangements with your planner or support coordinator.