Samar’s Story

Prior to moving into her SDA apartment, Samar was living in a housing commission block, which was an extremely stressful environment for someone with disability. Samar endured 8 long years living there – everyday feeling scared and unsafe to go outside her unit. Samar then took steps to leave her inappropriate housing situation and move into Medium Term Accommodation (MTA) for the following 2 years. Then everything changed when she moved into her new SDA apartment in June 2021.  

The journey towards getting her SDA funding, was anything but a straightforward process. Samar’s initial determination was for shared accommodation which was not the outcome Samar wanted. It eventually took another 6 months to finally receive approved funding for High Physical Support (HPS). 

However shortly after receiving her HPS determination, Samar faced another roadblock. After been asked to attend a review meeting with the NDIS, they advised her housing outcome had now been changed back to shared accommodation. “You just don’t know what the NDIS is going to do… I didn’t get any notification…I literally went into a review meeting and they told me your housing has been changed to shared accommodation. My understanding is that you can’t take away that determination unless something drastic happens…and nothing drastic happened to me, therefore I questioned as to why they change my determination? It was horrific…really stressful…I couldn’t focus on anything because I was worried I would be put back in shared accommodation. However with the support of Summer Housing, we just kept on fighting.”  

“During this ordeal, Liverty Housing was my absolute rock. They would check in on me every day to make sure I was going okay. They supported me through the process of engaging lawyers to fight for my case – they just went over and above their jobs to ensure we had the right tools to fight this. It was a long process, but we got there in the end, and I’m so appreciative of Summer Housing for being there every step of the way, and providing that supportive framework I so desperately needed at the time.” 

Life for Samar now “has been wonderful.” She feels safe and secure in her SDA apartment which has allowed her the freedoms she never had when living in a commission flat. Moving into her apartment has allowed her to rebuild her life and find herself again.

“I work full time now and I’m happy to be working in the workplace again. It’s been really good.” 

“I now just want to enjoy life and live life to the fullest.” Confronted with a recent health scare, has changed Samar’s outlook in life. “You never know when your time is up, so you need to make the most of what you have now and in life. I just try to do what I can. After all that I have been through over the years, my new motto is ‘Dream big – live bigger’ and I believe everyone should adopt this mentality in their daily lives.”