Walk through: Kevin Turner, Kerry Turner, Margaret Turner, Lynne Keogh, Fiona Keogh, Shirley McConechy, Chris McConechy and Kevin Harris at the opening. Picture: Supplied

A GROUP of Community Lifestyle Accommodation mums, dads and potential residents took a walk through the new Murray Anderson Road House at Rosebud last week.

The $2.5 million supported accommodation project to house eight adults with intellectual disabilities is expected to open in September.

Most residents of the house will have been cared for by their parents since birth.

“Final places for residents will be determined in a couple of months, but it is a magnificent building,” CLA patron Russell Joseph said.

Although a step in the right direction, the housing development, financed by the Uniting Church, represents only a small proportion of the 400 places needed across the southern region. No other projects are in the pipeline.

“Ageing parent-carers in our community are calling on the state government to help fund safe, secure and permanent housing for their adult sons and daughters with an intellectual disability,” Mr Joseph said.

Of particular concern are older people with intellectual disabilities who are still living under parental care at home and who will not receive any of the NDIS specialist disability accommodation allocation, he said.

“This must be a bipartisan issue and all parliaments need to drop the politics and implement an urgent action plan.”

CLA secretary Marie Hell said ageing parent carers had “been neglected for decades and still have not been included in any meaningful budgeted housing commitment for their sons and daughters”.

“The state government announced $33.2 million in the budget to support children who require residential or facility based care placement, but this will provide only a fraction of the funds required for those adults needing urgent permanent supported accommodation and they have been in the queue for much longer,” she said.

“If land values are factored into our future construction costs, then an investment of $200 million will be required over the next few years and, to date, there has been no discussion, let alone a commitment  anywhere near this level.”

First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 9 July 2019