When New Housing Isn’t the Answer The Tenancy Crisis Happening Right Now

Australia is in the middle of a disability housing boom. New apartment towers, social housing blocks and specialist disability developments are being announced across the country. It’s a genuine shift, and for many people it represents real hope.

But for the clients we work with every day, a new build on the other side of the city isn’t the answer. Their home already exists. The question is whether they get to keep it.

The gap nobody talks about

The national conversation about disability housing is mostly focused on what we’re building next. That’s important. But there’s a parallel crisis happening quietly in existing tenancies – in private rentals, social housing and owner-occupied homes across NSW – where people with disabilities, complex mental health needs or both are living in conditions that have gradually deteriorated to the point where they’re at serious risk of losing their home entirely.

Hoarding. Severe clutter. Squalor. These aren’t problems that get resolved by adding more dwellings to the pipeline. They’re the result of years of accumulated distress, often compounded by a lack of coordinated support, isolation, and systems that respond too late or not at all.

By the time most services become aware of a situation like this, the tenancy is already in jeopardy. Sometimes the eviction notice has already arrived.

What we actually do

Residence Revival specialises in hoarding and squalor remediation with a single goal: keeping people in their homes.

We work with NDIS participants, social housing tenants, private renters and homeowners - often alongside Support Coordinators, Occupational Therapists, housing providers and community services - to address the physical conditions of a home before they become irreversible.

That means working in environments that are genuinely complex. It means understanding that the accumulation of belongings or the state of a property is rarely just a “cleaning problem.” It’s usually a signal that someone has been doing it tough for a long time without adequate support.

Our approach is practical and non-judgmental. We’re not there to take over someone’s home. We’re there to help stabilise it - so they can stay in it.

The upstream opportunity

New research and advocacy around disability housing is increasingly pointing to what the sector calls “upstream” intervention - acting early, before a crisis point, to prevent more costly and more traumatic outcomes downstream.

Tenancy preservation is one of the clearest examples of this logic in practice. A well-timed, well-coordinated remediation job - even a major one - costs a fraction of what follows when a tenancy collapses: emergency accommodation, property damage claims, legal costs, trauma, displacement, and the very real risk of homelessness.

People living with disability are already disproportionately represented among those experiencing housing instability. When a tenancy fails, it rarely ends with a simple move. For someone with complex needs, it can mean months or years of disruption, regression, and harm.

We sit at the point in the system where that outcome can still be prevented.

What good collaboration looks like

The situations we’re called into are rarely simple, and they’re almost never resolved by one service acting alone. The best outcomes we’ve been part of have involved:

✔️ Support Coordinators who flagged a deteriorating situation early and brought the right people together

✔️ Occupational Therapists who helped identify functional and safety priorities inside the home

✔️ Housing providers who were willing to hold a tenancy while a coordinated plan was being executed

✔️ Community workers who stayed connected with the person throughout and after

✔️ Community workers who stayed connected with the person throughout and after

When those pieces are in place, we can do our job properly. And when we do our job properly, people stay housed.

If you work with people at risk

If you’re a support coordinator, OT, social worker, or housing provider working with someone whose home environment is becoming a concern, don’t wait for it to become a crisis.

Early contact is almost always better – for the person, for the tenancy, and for everyone trying to support them.

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