Have a Room Open? We'll Help You Find the Right Person for It

You know the vacancy you have available and you have an empty room, you know that the house works, you have a good home and you know that there is someone out there waiting for it to be exactly what they want.

We'll help you fill that space, on one room, and for free.

So here's how it works, what we need from you and what happens after.

Why The Two Sides Don't Find Each Other

Today a support coordinator is calling around looking for a home, perhaps a young man who was medically fit to go home four months ago, but who is still in hospital because there's nowhere to go; or a woman in her forties living with parents in their seventies, who is feeling concerned about what happens next.

Meanwhile, elsewhere a provider has a room available that would be good for them.

Why The Gap Is So Hard To Close

It's not because the two parties haven't tried their best. It's structural.

Coordinators have caseloads. When someone needs housing, they work from providers they are familiar with, and listings they can locate, and both of these are incomplete. A provider with a perfect room 3 suburbs away may simply not be on the list.

Providers, on the other hand, are operating houses. The person responsible for handling a referral enquiry is also making roster arrangements, conducting incident follow-ups and filling in a shift when someone calls in sick. If there is a vacancy, marketing it is what gets done on Friday afternoon.

Average placement time is 3 to 6 months, from first referral through quoting, roster of care, meet-and-greets and transition. There will be a certain amount of that required, you don't want to rush a decision on where a person is living. But it's really just two sides that don't meet.

What We Do

Support Network operates in the gap between people in need of a home and providers with a home.

Each week we're meeting with support coordinators, plan managers, families and participants around the sector discussing supported living, and who's interested, what they need and where the barriers are. And we are meeting with SIL providers about rooms available and the households they are located in. Most of the time, those two talks are taking place in entirely different locations.

We are creating the link between them, a more comprehensive picture of SIL vacancies and the people seeking them than any provider or coordinator can keep by themselves. The more of the sector we're connected to, the better every match gets.

That's a reduction in phone calls for support coordinators and plan managers to check capacity. For providers, it means the people who are truly a “good fit” for your home find their way to you, instead of you hearing about them six months later.

No fees are charged to the participant, families, support coordinator or plan manager. Coordinators should be able to use their judgement in suggesting whoever is the right fit for the person in front of them, and that only works if no one is paying for the answer.

What We're Not

We are not a lead list. We don't pass on every participant in your postcode with SIL funding, because if we did, the placement would break down, the person who was placed in it would be re-housed, the household who filled it would be unsettled, and everyone would be back where they were before with less confidence in the process than before.

🤝  Fewer introductions, better suited. That's the whole idea.

The Offer

Describe a room that is available and the home it is in. If we can find someone who is really suitable, we will make the introduction, at no cost, with no contract and nothing to cancel afterwards.

We do this because we are only a business if providers trust us, and it's easier to earn their trust by doing something useful for them than by telling them what we might be able to do. If it results in a placement, we'd like to talk about working together properly. Otherwise, you've had a discussion about your house and you didn't lose anything.

We can only take on a limited number at a time. If you have a room open now, we'd like it to be one of them.

A Note On Where The Sector Is At

You will be aware that the requirement for SIL providers to be registered came in on 1st July of this year, and applications for registration must be made before 1st October to ensure they are able to proceed through the transition. The majority of providers we talk to are well into it and those who aren't are working on it.

It's worth noting that there will be participants changing providers in the upcoming months. This is upsetting for them and may be stressful, and they will be searching for somewhere settled. If you've got space and a great functioning household, it's worth making that visible now rather than in December.

We are happy to help, even if you're not a client.

Tell us about your vacancy

→ email Michelle at michelle@supportnetwork.com.au