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MTA Perth
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- What MTA is for
- Why the geography changes the problem in WA
- The three criteria, and the exception
- The rate, and why the loadings matter here
- Ninety days, when travel is part of the plan
- Your position in the accommodation under WA law
- Lodging the request
- When MTA is refused
- Telling the four accommodation supports apart
- Questions for a Perth MTA provider
- Where we support MTA across Perth and Western Australia
Medium Term Accommodation · Perth
NDIS Medium Term Accommodation in Perth, where “statewide” covers a third of a continent
Western Australia concentrates its complex rehabilitation into a single 111-bed service at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Murdoch, and that service is genuinely statewide — it takes people from Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Karratha and Broome. Which creates a problem no other state has at the same scale. When somebody finishes rehabilitation in Perth and their home is two thousand kilometres away, “discharge” means either an unsafe return to a house that no longer suits them, or an indefinite stay in a hospital bed, or a bridge. Medium Term Accommodation is the bridge. This page explains what MTA funds, the discharge rule most people get wrong, what it costs in 2026–27 including the remote loadings that matter more in WA than anywhere, and what rights you hold in the accommodation.
If the person is from regional WA and rehabilitating in Perth, start early. Distance adds weeks to every step, and the planning window is the one thing you control.
MTA in Perth and WA at a glance
What MTA is for
The operational guideline describes Medium Term Accommodation as funding for somewhere to live if you cannot move into your long-term home because your disability supports are not ready. The causal clause in the middle is the test, and it narrows the support considerably.
MTA does not answer a housing shortage, a relationship breakdown or an eviction. It answers a single configuration: the destination is identified, a disability-related factor is holding up the move, and nowhere suitable exists to wait. Modifications under construction. An SDA apartment with a move-in date seven weeks away. A support arrangement agreed while recruitment continues.
Nor is it ever funded by itself. The guideline includes MTA only as part of a broader set of home and living supports, so a request lodged in isolation generally goes nowhere.
Why the geography changes the problem in WA
The State Rehabilitation Service sits on the Fiona Stanley Hospital campus at Murdoch, in its own building beside the main hospital. It holds 111 beds and provides specialty rehabilitation for people across Western Australia with complex or catastrophic injury or illness — traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke and other neurological conditions, orthopaedic conditions and amputation.
Within it sit the State Spinal Injury Inpatient Service on Ward 1A and the Spinal Outreach Service, alongside acquired brain injury and neurology programs, amputee services including an outpatient clinic, and trauma and multidiagnostic rehabilitation with orthotics and prosthetics. Being on the Fiona Stanley campus means direct access to theatres, imaging, pathology and pharmacy. Outpatient clinics run 8am to 8pm on weekdays and inpatient services run around the clock. The hospital helpdesk, which handles all enquiries, is on 6152 2222.
That is a strong service. The difficulty is arithmetic. One statewide centre serving a jurisdiction of roughly two and a half million square kilometres means a substantial share of its patients are a long way from home at the moment they stop needing a hospital bed, and the housing they are returning to has usually not been reassessed since the injury.
For those families the choices at discharge are genuinely poor. Go home to a house that does not work, and risk a readmission. Stay in a rehabilitation bed that somebody else needs. Or use the support that exists for exactly this gap.
The three criteria, and the exception
An ordinary request needs all three.
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On the hospital discharge pathway, with eligibility for SDA, SIL, ILO or home modifications established, the first requirement falls away.
The rate, and why the loadings matter here
For 2026–27, MTA carries a national price limit of $162.85 per day under support item 01_082_0115_1_1. Remote areas attract $227.99 and very remote areas $244.28. The schedule took effect on 1 July 2026.
In most of Australia the remote loadings are a footnote. In Western Australia they are central. A placement in Perth is priced at the national rate; a placement in a regional or remote town is priced considerably higher, which reflects what it genuinely costs to deliver accommodation and support at distance. It also means a plan built on metropolitan assumptions will not stretch to a regional placement, and that is worth flagging in the request rather than discovering at invoicing.
What the daily rate buys is the accommodation and nothing else. The exclusions are explicit:
- Everyday running costs. Groceries, power and internet are yours, on the reasoning that everybody pays them.
- Anything delivered to you during the stay. Personal care and other in-home supports sit outside the accommodation funding.
- Rent over the long term. Not an NDIS function, and nor is affordable housing.
- Respite or crisis accommodation. Separate supports, separate tests.
Supports already in your plan can be used during an MTA stay. Where the stay creates genuinely additional need — more personal care, assistive technology, help with the move — that can be funded if it meets the criteria, but it has to be requested, and the right moment is when the MTA request goes in.
Ninety days, when travel is part of the plan
The guideline generally funds MTA for up to 90 days and allows longer where there is evidence of continuing disability-related need. An extension is lodged on evidence before the period ends.
In WA the ninety days frequently has to absorb things that do not arise elsewhere: a building trade travelling to a regional town, equipment freighted rather than delivered, an occupational therapist’s site visit requiring a flight. Each adds a week that nobody budgeted.
The practical response is to build a dated dependency chain in the first fortnight and identify the longest link, then start that link immediately. Modifications are usually the long pole — an OT report, a quote, an approval, a builder, an inspection, each waiting on the last — and in a regional context every one of those steps carries travel time. If the chain has slipped by more than a couple of weeks by around day seventy, lodge the extension then rather than hoping.
Your position in the accommodation under WA law
Residential tenancies in Western Australia are governed by the Residential Tenancies Act 1987, administered by Consumer Protection within the state’s consumer regulator, with most disputes heard in the Magistrates Court. Western Australia has not legislated a disability-specific accommodation agreement in the way Victoria has, which makes the question of what you are signing more important rather than less.
Two distinctions are worth understanding before a placement.
A residential tenancy brings the Act’s protections: a written agreement, rules about bond, limits on entry, defined grounds and notice for termination, and access to the Magistrates Court. A boarding or lodging arrangement, where you have a room and services rather than exclusive possession of premises, generally falls outside the Act, and the protections are whatever the agreement says plus general law. A short MTA placement can be structured either way.
So the question to put to a WA provider is direct: is this a residential tenancy under the Residential Tenancies Act, or a boarding or lodging arrangement, and can I see the agreement before I commit? A provider who answers clearly is demonstrating something useful about how the rest of the service runs. Consumer Protection publishes guidance on both arrangements and is the right first call if you are unsure.
Separately, and regardless of the accommodation type, the NDIS framework applies throughout. The provider must be registered for the supports they deliver, must meet the NDIS Practice Standards, and must report defined incidents to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. Quality concerns go to the Commission; tenancy concerns go to Consumer Protection. They are different doors and people often knock on the wrong one.
Lodging the request
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When MTA is refused
Each of these is a stated refusal ground rather than a discretionary call:
- It would be reasonable for you to stay with informal supports meanwhile.
- You can stay in your current accommodation while you wait.
- The need is not disability-related, general repairs being the guideline’s own example.
- The support is properly funded by another service or organisation.
- Your long-term home is not confirmed, except on the hospital and justice discharge pathways.
Telling the four accommodation supports apart
| Support | What it funds | Usual duration | Covers support workers? |
|---|---|---|---|
| MTA | Accommodation while the long-term home is not ready | Generally up to 90 days | No |
| STA | Accommodation and support for time apart from informal carers | Up to 28 days a year, 14 at a time | Yes, claimed separately since 1 July 2026 |
| SIL | The support roster in a shared home | Ongoing | Yes, that is the support |
| SDA | The dwelling, where purpose-built or modified | Ongoing | No |
The first two are mistaken for each other constantly, and the dividing line is purpose rather than length. One exists so that a person and the family who care for them can be apart for a while. The other exists because a building is not finished. The short term accommodation guideline makes the boundary explicit: while you are waiting on home modifications, STA is unavailable and MTA may be funded instead.
Questions for a Perth MTA provider
- What is the realistic start date, and what would bring it forward? A process beats a promise.
- Who provides support during the stay, and is it the team who will support me afterwards? Continuity through a transition is worth a great deal.
- Is this a residential tenancy or a boarding arrangement? See the WA section above.
- Can you operate regionally, and what changes if the destination is a country town? In WA this is a central question rather than an edge case.
- What clinical needs are genuinely within your capability? Enteral feeding, complex bowel care, tracheostomy care, seizure plans and subcutaneous medication are all bounded by scope of practice rules. Expect a specific answer.
- Who do I call, and what is the arrangement at weekends? Transitions fail on Sundays.
We are registered with the NDIS. We are not a hospital, a clinical team or a housing provider. Where a placement is outside what we can do properly, we would rather say so on the first call.
Where we support MTA across Perth and Western Australia
MTA Perth: common questions
Generally up to 90 days, and the guideline permits longer where there is evidence you need it longer because of your disability support needs. The extension has to be lodged on evidence before the period expires. In Western Australia the ninety days often has to absorb travel-related delay that does not arise in other states — trades travelling to regional towns, freighted equipment, an occupational therapist flying for a site visit — so building a dated plan early matters more here than almost anywhere.
Usually, with one significant exception. The general rule requires a long-term home you will move into afterwards, evidenced by a provider offer letter, works in progress on modifications, or a tenancy offer with a likely move-in date. But the guideline states that if you are being discharged from hospital and you are eligible for SDA, SIL, individualised living options or home modifications, you do not need a confirmed long-term home. For somebody from regional WA rehabilitating in Perth, whose future housing genuinely cannot be settled from a hospital bed, that exception does most of the work.
The 2026-27 national price limit is $162.85 per day under support item 01_082_0115_1_1. Remote areas are $227.99 and very remote areas $244.28. Perth sits within the national band, but a large part of Western Australia does not, and the loadings exist because delivering accommodation and support at distance genuinely costs more. If a placement or a destination is regional, it is worth naming the applicable price limit in the funding request rather than letting metropolitan assumptions carry through.
Often, because it removes housing from the critical path. Where a person is medically ready but their long-term housing is weeks or months away, MTA is the mechanism designed for the gap, and the hospital discharge pathway does not require a confirmed long-term home where eligibility for SDA, SIL, ILO or home modifications has been established. The binding constraint is how early the request is made. Beginning while the person is still an inpatient, with the hospital social work team involved, changes the timeline far more than anything that happens afterwards.
It depends how the placement is structured, and Western Australia has not created a disability-specific agreement of the kind Victoria uses. A residential tenancy falls under the Residential Tenancies Act 1987, which brings rules on bond, entry, termination grounds and notice, with disputes generally heard in the Magistrates Court. A boarding or lodging arrangement, where you have a room and services rather than exclusive possession, generally sits outside that Act. Both are legitimate ways to structure a short placement, and you are entitled to know which one applies and to see the agreement before committing. Consumer Protection publishes guidance on both.
Raise it immediately, because the basis for the funding has changed. MTA assumes a destination, so if the destination goes the original grounds have gone with it. The work then moves to establishing a new long-term option — an SDA application, a SIL vacancy, an individualised living option, or social housing — while seeking an extension on evidence of continuing disability-related need. Letting the ninety days expire while everyone hopes the original plan recovers is the one approach that reliably makes things worse.
Yes, and they frequently do. A support coordinator, plan manager, hospital social worker or treating team member can prepare and lodge it, and a hospital referral carries weight because it establishes the discharge context. Deciding it is the NDIA’s job; the plan is the participant’s. The thing that matters is that the submission addresses each criterion with evidence rather than describing the circumstances in general terms.
Yes, and we will be candid about lead times. Regional and remote Western Australia is where this support is most needed and hardest to deliver — the workforce is thin, trades and equipment travel, and nothing can be stood up in a week. What we can do is tell you honestly what is achievable in a given town and timeframe, and start the slow parts moving early. Where we cannot deliver properly in a location, we would rather say so at the outset than discover it halfway through a placement.
