Rooms, respite for people in need

AN agreement between disability service provider SASS and The Fleece Inn will see the East Bendigo hotel provide short-term accommodation for people with disabilities.

Managing director of SASS James Maw said the deal will mean 13 NDIS participants will have access to respite care, in high demand due to a lack of disability housing.

“One of the biggest challenges we’ve seen as a disability service provider locally is that there’s a shortage of accommodation venues specifically catered for people with a disability,” he said.

“Utilising that building for respite or short-term accommodation means where someone has a disability, they would have funding under their NDIS plan to allow them to go somewhere on a mini holiday.

“We only formally announced it at the start of last week, we’ve got 13 rooms on offer and in the first day we’d already booked out the top floor which is six rooms.”

Mr Maw said the agreement benefits the owners of The Fleece Inn as it has not operated at full capacity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and disability support is an essential service, meaning the building will be full.

Since launching in 2017, SASS has been looking for new and innovative ways to provide disability services, including their Ironstone Hill activity farm and SASS-able program.

“What we’ve tried to do out there is acknowledge there’s a real shortage of activities for people with disabilities to do in the community,” Mr Maw said.

“We want people to have the opportunity to say ‘I’ve got an interest in this, how can we make it happen?’”

Officially opening in March this year, Ironstone Hills offers everything from breakdancing to archery, karate, woodworking, and yoga for participants.

Mr Maw said the program will continue to grow and may be offered in different locations to allow for an even bigger range of activities, such as cooking classes using the kitchen facilities of public halls.

“We’ve seen the popularity explode since we opened in March to the point where our business has grown almost 50 per cent from January this year,” Mr Maw said.

“They were two of the key things we wanted to see implemented this year, the establishment of a respite hotel and the activity farm, and we’re very excited that both of them have come to fruition.”