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Washington Protection & Advocacy System Pursuing justice on behalf of people with disabilities on matters related to their human, legal, and civil rights. Promoting Dignity, Equality and Self-Determination.
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People with Disabilities Priced Out of HousingNew Report Shows Rental Prices Higher than SSI Checksby Phil Jordan June 18, 2003 Also on this Page:
It is not just your imagination – you really can’t afford to live on your Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check. According to a new report called “Priced Out in 2002,” the average rent for a modest one-bedroom apartment in the United States was equal to 105% of your SSI check. In other words, even if you spent your entire check on rent, you still would not have enough money to rent a one-bedroom apartment. The study was conducted by the Technical Assistance Collaborative and shows that people with disabilities are priced out of every housing market area in the country. There was not a single market area where modestly priced rents for efficiency or one-bedroom units were affordable for people with disabilities receiving SSI. The news in Washington state is even bleaker. In the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area, the price of a modest one-bedroom apartment is 124.4% of an SSI check, and in rural areas a similar apartment is 78.3%. Most experts state that housing is affordable for a person when it costs 30% or less of that person’s income. Below is a table that shows the amount of an SSI check and the cost of apartments in various areas in Washington state. In each line, the table lists the area of the state first, then the amount of an SSI check, then the cost of a modest one-bedroom apartment.
The report has several other disturbing findings. People with disabilities, as a group, tend to be the poorest people in the country. People whose only income is SSI receive only 18.8% of what the average (median) one-person household makes. People receiving SSI would have to triple their income to afford a decent one-bedroom apartment in 2002. Even though there are yearly “cost of living” adjustments to SSI payments, people with disabilities are not getting any closer to being able to afford housing because the cost of rental housing is increasing faster than the cost of living increases given to SSI recipients. Because of this, people with disabilities are further away from being able to afford an apartment than they were two years ago. In some housing markets, increases in rental housing costs were six times higher than SSI benefits increases. This study is an important tool for advocates when talking with policy makers about housing issues. Legislators (and other public officials) want data about problems faced by people with disabilities. Although it can be very effective to talk to your Legislator about your own personal story that relates to the difficulty about finding adequate housing, it is better to have both a personal story and some compelling statistics to make your point. Printed at the bottom of this article is the Executive Summary of the Priced Out in 2002 study. The findings in this study can help convince policy-makers that the lack of affordable housing for people with disabilities is a major problem.
Do you want to read more about this study? The entire report is available on the internet at http://www.tacinc.org/cms/admin/cms/_uploads/docs/PO2002.pdf. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to be able to read this study. Acrobat Reader is free and can be downloaded onto your computer by going to the Adobe web site at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Although the entire report is 53 pages long, you can get a clear picture of what the study learned by reading only the “Executive Summary.” There is also an interesting, and easy-to-read section on “Policy Recommendations.” This section may give you some ideas about suggestions for public policy when talking to your Legislator or other policy-makers. Do you want information on how you can influence your Legislator? Read this Page! ●
Tips for Finding Affordable HousingThere are some government programs that help people with disabilities find affordable housing. Advocate Steve Gold has a great web site that has lots of information about housing for people with disabilities. Below is his latest information bulletin that describes a new source of information that might be helpful. HUD's Subsidized Multifamily Units – Steve Gold Information Bulletin # 54There is a "new" source of information available that can assist disability advocates find affordable and accessible units. HUD has posted a web site for its "Subsidized Multifamily Units" at http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/mfh/hto/inventorysurvey.cfm Once you go there click on "Subsidized Apartment Search." Scroll down "Select State to Search" to your state, click "next" and then you scroll down and click on ONLY one of the following - City, County or Zip code. Once you are in your city or county, I would skip the rest and hit next. You will then have the property name, address and telephone number, the name of the "contact" and the type of property. There are three types of properties - Family, Elderly and Disabled-only. They do not list the total number of units, nor whether any are in fact accessible. Obviously, only the "Family" units will be integrated - both nondisabled and disabled persons. These properties were all "funded" from HUD sometime in the past, and HUD classifies them as "Multifamily" units. Many of these properties currently have project-based rental vouchers attached to the unit, which makes them "affordable" because the tenant must pay only 30% of her/his income. What is critical for disabled advocates to remember is that ALL three types of property must comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and therefore comply with the "accessibility" requirements. IF the properties were altered or rehabilitated since 1988, then at least 5% of the units must be fully "accessible." EVEN IF they were not altered or rehabilitated since 1988, they MUST make units accessible for a person with a disability who needs accessibility. That is, the owner must make specific units accessible as they are need and the landlord must pay for the accessibility. Also, IF they have units that they identify as "accessible," then disabled persons should be in those units. WHAT ADVOCATES SHOULD DO: 1. Make a list of all the "Family" properties in your area. 2. You or your disabled clients should telephone the property managers/owners. Ask them for the total number of units, how many are accessible units, and are people with disabilities residing in them. 3. If there are any vacant units, get them. If there is a waiting list, get on it. 4. Make the owners of these HUD-funded properties comply with Section 504 with the accessibility requirements.
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable Archive at this site. ●
Priced Out in 2002 - May 2003a report of the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. and Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force Executive SummaryHousing is a basic human need. For people with disabilities to live in the community and achieve and sustain full participation in community life, they must have an affordable place to live - a place to call home. Unfortunately, for more than 3.7 million adults with disabilities living on federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, the goal of having a home of one's own - whether a small studio apartment or a single family house - has become even more impossible to achieve. In 2002, the combination of extreme poverty and record-setting rent levels continued to fuel this housing crisis in virtually every housing market in the United States. In order to document the full scope of this housing crisis and its effects on the most vulnerable people with disabilities, the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force are once again publishing Priced Out, a biennial comparison of rental housing costs and SSI income. This edition, Priced Out in 2002, documents the desperate plight of people with disabilities who are now entirely "priced out" of the rental housing market. Priced Out in 2002 - Major FindingsPriced Out in 2002 looks beyond the manifestations of this housing crisis to get to its root cause - the extreme and growing affordability gap between the income of Americans with disabilities and modest rental housing costs. In 2002, the SSI program provided people with disabilities an income of $545 per month. By comparing SSI monthly income to HUD Fair Market Rents across the United States, Priced Out in 2002 documents that:
Evidence of this housing crisis exists in every community, but is often hidden from view. For example, hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities are "invisible" when housing needs are assessed because they still live in high cost institutions, nursing homes, and unsafe board and care homes paid for with government money. Approximately 1.4 million people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits live in the community - but in seriously substandard housing and/or in housing that costs more than half their income (source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development). These unstable housing conditions mean that people are constantly at risk of homelessness. Additionally, because they continue to live at home with aging parents, at least 640,000 people with severe disabilities are not factored into government housing needs estimates. These housing needs are truly "invisible" - except to the parents whose constant worry is where their adult child will live after they die. The most visible manifestation of this affordable housing crisis is the growing number of people with disabilities who are actually homeless - including hundreds of thousands of people with severe disabilities "living" in homeless shelters or on the streets of our cities and towns. ConclusionThe findings of Priced Out in 2002 document extreme housing affordability problems for people with disabilities - problems that have become much worse since the first edition of Priced Out was published in 1998. Cost of living increases in SSI benefits, state SSI supplements, or even employment at the minimum wage will never be enough to close the housing affordability gap created by the escalating cost of privately owned rental housing in the United States. For many years, the federal government, as well as many state and local housing officials, have turned their backs on the poorest people with disabilities who need housing assistance in order to have any chance to live in decent housing of their own in the community. This trend continues in 2003, as federal housing programs are cut so that tax cuts for the most affluent Americans can be implemented. As advocates and self-advocates, we must redouble our efforts to change these policies and strengthen our commitment to work with others who share our vision to help those most in need. Collectively, we must continue to help build the political will to change government housing policies, and promote a significant expansion of decent, safe, affordable, accessible, and integrated housing for people with disabilities in every community in the United States. The data included in Priced Out in 2002 is intended to help housing advocates and self-advocates achieve this goal. ●
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