QPPD is a member of the Community Safeguards Coalition (CSC). CSC is a network of advocacy agencies, people with disability and their families, friends, advocates and allies of people with disability in Queensland (see List).

CSC Mission:
To promote people with disability having the equal right, together with the appropriate support and resources to the same range of lifestyles as other people by safeguarding against legislation, policies and practices that limit or deny their fundamental rights.

CSC Aims:

• To provide a mechanism for a collective of like-minded people to undertake united and rights-based action
• To examine and analyse government policy and practice which dictates the ways that people with disability are supported in Queensland 
• To raise awareness of any negative impacts that government legislation, policy and practice have on people with disability

CSC Beliefs:
We believe that people with disability have a right to:

• Live in the community with choices equal to others
• Be included and participate in the community
• Choose their place of residence on an equal basis with others and not be obliged to live in any particular living arrangement

CSC’s current Campaign My Life, My Home, My Solution is around the practice of Forced Co-tenancy. Disability Services call it Shared Accommodation.

Forced co-tenancy is where:

• A person is denied the fundamental right to choose where and with whom they live
• A vacancy in a group home is the only option
• A person’s basic care needs will not be met unless they “agree” to another person with disability moving into their home so support can be shared
• Funding programs (block funding) are delivered in ways that force individuals to live in group situations, making them ineligible to access individual funding to move out of the group situation.

This practice is a direct contravention of Article 19(a) of the United Nations Convention on the Human Rights of People with Disability, which has been ratified by the Australian Government and states:
Persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement.

OUTCOMES SOUGHT
We call on Disability Services to:

1. Adopt principles, policies and practices that prevent forced co-tenancy
2. Adopt principles, policies and practices that prevent people's private homes being seen as potential sources of 'beds'.
3. Ensure that control over the living arrangements of people with disability return to the authority of people with disability and/or their families.
4. Restore the policy and practice of authentic individualised funding arrangements
5. Fund an innovative pilot project based on self directed funding.

It is time people with disability were heard and their rights, not just
acknowledge, but implemented. It is time for action and commitment to change.

If your son or daughter is experiencing this practice of forced co-tenancy, QPPD would like to hear your story. CSC is currently lobbying government to change this practice.