Supported Independent Living in Ballarat and the Goldfields.
The team is here. The houses are not. Which means SIL in Ballarat is built around your home rather than ours — and that is often the better arrangement anyway.
Support that comes to your address, not ours
Gencare has a real office on Sturt Street and a local team who live in the Goldfields. What we do not have is a house here. Every home we run is in Melbourne’s west, and moving to one of them would mean leaving Ballarat, which for almost everybody is the wrong trade.
So supported living here works the other way round. Rather than offering you a room in our house, we build the support around wherever you are going to live — a place you already rent, a home you are buying into with others, a property found through another provider, or a family home where the arrangement needs to change as someone becomes an adult.
That is not a compromise. Provider-owned housing ties the roof over your head to the company delivering your support, which means changing provider can mean losing your home. Keeping those two things separate is something a lot of people in the sector argue for on principle, and in Ballarat it is simply how it works.
What supported independent living in Ballarat & Goldfields actually looks like
Your tenancy stays yours
Support and housing kept separate. Changing your mind about a provider never means packing up your home.
A local team, on Sturt Street
Established before we opened, near Ballarat Base Hospital and the station. Not a roster driven up from the city.
You choose who you live with
Or whether you live with anyone. Without a house to fill, there is no vacancy pushing the decision either way.
When your provider owns your house, changing your mind about one means changing both. It is worth keeping those separate.
What SIL with Gencare in Ballarat involves
Ballarat is an active care hub with a local team, so most of this is straightforward. The housing point is the one worth stating plainly.
What can start now
- Deliver SIL support in a home you already have, or one you are moving into
- Help you work through housing options across Ballarat and the Goldfields, including other providers’ properties
- Arrange a Meet and Greet locally, at our Sturt Street office or wherever suits you
- Coordinate with Ballarat Base Hospital, allied health and the local services you already use
- Support participants across the smaller Goldfields towns, with travel planned into the roster
What we cannot do yet
- Offer you a Gencare-owned home in Ballarat — every home we run is in Melbourne’s west
- Provide SDA; none of our homes are SDA-registered dwellings anywhere in Victoria
Where this reaches
Now supporting participants across Ballarat and the Goldfields, including:
A local base at Ballarat, by appointment — though most support happens where you are.
Not sure if we reach your suburb? Ask us about your area — coverage is broader than any list.
Working it out, one step at a time
Start with the support
What you need help with, what you want to do yourself, and how much of the day that actually accounts for.
Then the housing
Whether where you live now can work, and if not, what exists in Ballarat and the Goldfields that could.
Build the team
Local workers matched to you rather than allocated. In a town this size, who turns up is a decision worth making carefully.
Start small if you want
A few hours a week that grows is a perfectly reasonable way in. Nothing has to begin at full intensity.
Supported Independent Living in Ballarat & Goldfields, answered
No. We have a real office at 706 Sturt Street and a local team who live in the region, but every Gencare home is in Melbourne’s west. SIL in Ballarat means we deliver the support in whatever home you live in — which is how a great deal of supported living works, and for most people here it is the better arrangement than relocating.
Yes, and it is the most common way it works here. SIL funds the support, not the property. If where you live now is workable — or could be with some modifications — the question is whether the right support can be built around that address rather than whether you need to move.
By planning the distance in rather than pretending it is not there. We support participants through Creswick, Daylesford, Buninyong, Ballan, Maryborough and Ararat as well as Ballarat itself. Smaller towns are exactly where consistent support is hardest to find, so travel goes into the roster design from the start.
Choice, mainly. When housing and support come from the same company, being unhappy with the support means risking your home, and people stay in arrangements they would otherwise leave. Keeping them separate means you can change your mind about us without changing your address — which is how it should work.
Yes — our Ballarat office is at 706 Sturt Street, in the Ballarat Business Centre, near the Base Hospital and the railway station. Visits are by appointment so nothing is rushed, and we are equally happy to come to you.
Other supports here
Looking for supported independent living in Ballarat & Goldfields?
Tell us what you need and we will be straight with you about what is available. A real person responds within 2 hours.