— June 2001 —

Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. Boston, MA 02108 (617) 266-5657

Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force Washington, DC (202) 785-3388

 

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Table of Contents

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Acknowledgements

Forward

Executive Summary and Recommendations

Chapter 1: Overview and Study Methodology

Chapter 2: Key Findings and Data Tables

Table 1: SSI Benefits as a Percentage of One-Person Median Income
Table 2: Percent of SSI Benefits Needed To Rent a One-Bedroom Housing Unit
Map: Percent of SSI Benefits Needed to Rent a One-Bedroom Apartment
Table 3: Housing Affordability in the State of Colorado
Table 4: Housing Market Areas Requiring More Than 100 Percent of Montly SSI Benefits to Rent a One-Bedroom Unit
Table 5: Increases in SSI Benefits Compared to Increases in Housing Costs

Chapter 3: SSI and Hourly Wage Data

Table 6: SSI Benefits Expressed as an Hourly Wage Rate
Table 7: Housing Wage as a Percentage of Hourly SSI Benefits

Chapter 4: Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Appendix A: State and City Data

Appendix B: How to Use the Information in Priced Out in 2000

 

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Acknowledgements

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The Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. (TAC) appreciates the valuable contributions made by various people to the publication of Priced Out in 2000: The Crisis Continues including research and editorial support from Brian Smith and Andy Zovistoski at the Vermont Department of Developmental and Mental Health Services; Marie Herb and Maura Versluys at TAC; and Sheila Crowley and Jennifer Twombly at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Priced Out in 2000 is the latest in a series of housing policy reports published as a joint effort by TAC and the Washington, DC based Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force. TAC is a non-profit organization providing state-of-the-art technical assistance and training to housing and human service organizations so that they may achieve positive outcomes in their work on behalf of people who are disadvantaged and/or have disabilities. For further information, please contact Marie Herb, Emily Miller, Ann O'Hara, or Maura Versluys at:

TAC
535 Boylston Street
Suite 1301
Boston, MA 02108
(617) 266-5657
info@tacinc.org

CCD is a national coalition of consumer, advocacy, provider, and professional organizations who advocate on behalf of people of all ages with disabilities and their families. CCD has created the CCD Housing Task Force to focus specifically on housing issues that affect people with disabilities. For further information, please contact the CCD Housing Task Force co-chairs:

Suellen Galbraith American Network of Community Options and Resources (703) 642-6614

Kathy McGinley The Arc of the United States (202) 785-3388

Susan Prokop Paralyzed Veterans of America (202) 416-7707

Andrew Sperling National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (703) 524-7600

 

TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force would like to extend their thanks to the Melville Charitable Trust for the financial support which made the publication of Priced Out in 2000 possible, and for their continued commitment to the housing needs of people with disabilities. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the Melville Charitable Trust.

© Copyright 2001 by the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc.
All rights reserved.

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Foreword

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By Sheila Crowley, President, National Low Income Housing Coalition

My first experience as a social work student in the 1970s was as an outreach worker for a community mental health center to which hundreds of previously institutionalized psychiatric patients had been referred when they were released from the state hospital in the first big wave of deinstitutionalization. The community mental health center was overwhelmed by the number of new clients, who needed much more than counseling and medication to achieve stability in their new environment. The director of the center turned to the local university for help and a cadre of social work students – including myself – was sent out into the community to find these new residents.

This was just before the emergence of homelessness in the late 1970s, but the warning signs were there. Housing that could accommodate the new arrivals was never adequate, and what did exist was starting to disappear. Most of the "deinstitutionalized" were relegated to board and care homes in aged housing stock where they lived three or four to a room. Their entire Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks were signed over to the board and care home operators, who doled out a dollar a day in spending money to each resident. They were not welcomed by their neighbors. They had little to do, except watch TV, pace the sidewalk, sit on the porch or the side of the bed, and wait for occasional visits from social work students and other do-gooders.

Most of the board and care home operators were kind caretakers, but too many were cashing in on the demand for cheap housing for an unwanted influx of émigrés from institutions. The community expected the operators to control the behavior and comings and goings of their residents. The operators expected the residents to be compliant and grateful that they had a place to live at all. Living in the community was a cruel hoax if it meant a bed in a dingy room, total financial and physical dependence, suspicious and unwelcoming neighbors, and reliance on understaffed public clinics for health and mental health care.

As has often been the case in my career as a social worker, what my very first clients taught me far exceeded anything I could do for them. They gave me an early and vivid lesson in the centrality of housing in the ability of any of us to live stable – much less productive – lives. Most of us tacitly understand how important our housing is to our well being, but because most of us have good housing that we can afford, it is easy to take it for granted. Housing is a basic human need. Because of the need for physical shelter, housing is intricately intertwined with the core human experiences of relationship, security, respite, privacy, ownership, and community. The quality of housing and the health of the neighborhood in which it is located directly affect the physical and mental health of its inhabitants, their ability to raise a family, their ability to achieve employment and educational success, their ability to be engaged in civic life. What could be more fundamental to a caring and just society than assuring a minimum standard of housing below which no one will be allowed to fall?

Yet, as a nation, we are further from that ideal today than we ever have been. As the Technical Assistance Collaborative and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force demonstrate so clearly in this edition of Priced Out in 2000, the ability of people whose disabilities prevent their full participation in the work force, and who thus rely on SSI or Social Security to compete in today's housing market, is virtually non-existent without additional assistance. Those who assert that having a disability is a "cause" of homelessness are missing several crucial steps in anyone's journey from being housed to being homeless. The housing crisis is caused by an insufficient supply and range of housing options for low-income members of a community. Poor people with disabilities are the most vulnerable to housing instability in this kind of housing market, and thus are over represented in among homeless people.

In the quarter century since I met my first clients coming out of the state hospitals we have gained a much better understanding of disability issues and developed innovations in the services and supports that people may want or need. We have made much less progress in housing low-income people. The affordable housing crisis is not an unsolvable problem. Unprecedented federal budget surpluses mute the longstanding argument that the United States cannot afford to provide low-income housing. We have learned a great deal about how to best design homes and communities that afford dignity and opportunity to the people who live in them. We have a cadre of community-based entities that stand ready to develop and operate safe, affordable, quality housing. We have mediation and legal tools to overcome community opposition to the development of affordable housing. What we need is public will and political courage.

 

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Executive Summary and Recommendations

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Everyone needs a place to live - a place to call home. Unfortunately, millions of people with disabilities today stand little chance of having a decent and affordable home of their own. This is particularly true for over three and a half million adults with disabilities who receive federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits - equal to a monthly income of $512 in 2000.

Because of their severe lack of income, people with disabilities are facing a housing crisis – a crisis that is getting worse. In order to document the full scope of this housing crisis, the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. (TAC) and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force have published Priced Out in 2000: The Crisis Continues. Priced Out in 2000 updates the information contained in a groundbreaking report, Priced Out in 1998: The Housing Crisis for People with Disabilities. Both these reports examine the affordability of modest efficiency and one-bedroom housing units for people with disabilities in all 50 states and within each of the 2,703 distinct housing market areas of the country defined by the federal government. These are the type of rental units most sought after by single individuals with disabilities who want to establish a home of their own in the community.

Key Findings

The key findings of Priced Out in 2000 document that people with disabilities lost more "buying power" in the rental housing market during the past two years, and were still the low-income group with the highest levels of unmet need for housing assistance. Priced Out in 2000 documents that:

The Crisis Continues

During this past decade of increasing prosperity, low-income elderly households and low-income households with children have seen their need for government housing assistance actually decline as their incomes increased. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for people with severe disabilities receiving SSI benefits.

According to the HUD's recent policy report A Report on Worst Case Housing Needs in 1999: New Opportunity Amid Continuing Challenges, the number of "worst case" renter households in the United States declined 8 percent between 1997 and 1999. This decline in housing need occurred among every group eligible for federal housing assistance except people with disabilities. Unfortunately, for people with disabilities, increased prosperity has meant literally being "priced out" of the affordable housing market.

Because of their extreme poverty, the 3.5 million non-elderly people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits cannot afford decent housing anywhere in the country without some type of government housing assistance. Yet relatively few non-elderly disabled households actually benefit from HUD subsidized housing programs. Instead, millions of people with disabilities are living in restrictive congregate settings or in seriously substandard housing; still living at home with aging parents who do not know what will happen to their adult child when they can no longer provide housing for them; or are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless.

In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead v. L.C. decision affirmed that under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with disabilities have a basic civil right to live in the most integrated community-based setting appropriate to their needs. Although the Olmstead case was not about affordable housing per se, providing affordable housing opportunities is central to any community-based integration strategy. Without housing assistance, the vision within the ADA affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be achieved.

In a cruel irony, even though the need has increased since 1998, the number of affordable housing units available to people with disabilities has declined. According to HUD, between 1997 and 1999 there was a 13 percent reduction in units affordable to the poorest of our nation's citizens, including people with disabilities. In addition, it's been documented by advocates that people with disabilities have also lost access to as many as 273,000 units of federally subsidized housing that have been designated "elderly only." (1)

Other issues that have contributed to the housing crisis for people with disabilities include:

Study Methodology

Priced Out in 2000 uses four data sets to analyze housing affordability for people with disabilities:

The first three data sets are the same as those used for Priced Out in 1998, updated with year 2000 information. The housing wage information is being published with the cooperation of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a national organization dedicated solely to ending America's affordable housing crisis. The National Low Income Housing Coalition publishes housing wage information annually in its Out of Reach report, a rental housing analysis that is similar in approach to Priced Out in 2000 but targeted to all low-income households.

The housing wage is the hourly wage that a household must earn to be able to rent a housing unit at the HUD Fair Market Rent and pay no more than 30 percent of income. By comparing SSI benefits to the housing wage, housing advocates for people with disabilities now have an additional tool to illustrate the significant gap between the value of monthly SSI benefits and the income that is needed to rent modest housing.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition also provided data on renter households for each housing market area of the country. This data was used to calculate more precise national and state-by-state averages – weighted by the number of renter households – for Priced Out in 2000. When the authors, for the purposes of comparison, applied this new renter household information to the original Priced Out in 1998 data, it became clear that the housing crisis for people with disabilities was actually worse than originally reported.

Policy Recommendations

Priced Out in 2000 accurately documents the extremely difficult housing affordability problems that people with disabilities confront in today's rental housing market. Unfortunately, it also documents that these problems have become much worse during the past two years. Despite the "wake-up call" sounded by the publication of Priced Out in 1998, the nation's affordable housing policy makers and housing providers have still not responded enough to make any difference.

It is clear that the federal government; state and local governments; Public Housing Agencies; and affordable housing providers must do much more to reverse the decline in housing opportunities which occurred during the past two years for the millions of people with disabilities who rely on SSI benefits. New and more aggressive policies must be developed by federal housing officials, more funding must be made available, and state and local officials must be held accountable for their responsibility to distribute a "fair share" of government housing assistance to people with disabilities based on need.

To ensure that federal, state and local housing officials expand housing opportunities for people with disabilities, TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force make the following recommendations:

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Chapter 1: Overview and Study Methodology

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Everyone needs a place to live – a place to call home. Safe and affordable housing enables a person with a disability to be an active member of the community. With stable housing, one can achieve other important life goals, including education, job training, and employment.

Unfortunately, millions of people with disabilities stand little chance of obtaining decent and affordable housing. This is particularly true for many of the 3.5 million people with severe disabilities between the ages of 18 and 64 who receive federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, (2) which were equal to a monthly income of $512 (or an annual income of $6,144) in 2000. It is this lack of income – not their disability – that causes people with disabilities to have housing problems.

This housing crisis continues to get worse for people with disabilities. During the past decade of increasing prosperity, other groups eligible for federal housing assistance (i.e. elderly households, families with children) have seen their incomes rise. However, while others were profiting from this economic boom, people with disabilities actually lost ground in the housing market.

In many communities, increased economic prosperity has meant that people with disabilities are literally "priced out" of the affordable housing market. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) latest housing needs report to the Congress, titled A Report on Worst Case Housing Needs in 1999: New Opportunity Amid Continuing Challenges, affirms this trend. This report indicates that people with disabilities continue to face a housing crisis, and are the group most in need of federal housing assistance. HUD's report indicates that at least 1.3 million adults with disabilities had "worst case" housing needs(3) in 1999.(4)

It is important to note that, according to HUD, the number of renter households with severe housing problems in the United States actually declined from 5.4 million households in 1997 to 4.9 million households in 1999 – a significant reduction of 8 percent. This decline in housing needs occurred among every group eligible for federal housing assistance except people with disabilities. In fact, the report states that "new research with Supplemental Security Income program data suggests that [housing] needs among the disabled may have increased slightly between 1997 and 1999."

Because of their extreme poverty, people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits cannot afford decent housing anywhere in the country without some type of government housing assistance. Yet relatively few people with disabilities actually participate in HUD subsidized housing programs. Published data from the HUD Office of Policy Development and Research indicates that people with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 62 represent approximately 13 percent of the total households that currently receive federal housing assistance, even though they make up over 25 percent of the 4.9 million households with "worst case" housing needs.

Currently millions of people with disabilities who receive SSI benefits are not receiving federal housing assistance and cannot even get on subsidized housing waiting lists. Instead, they are living in restrictive congregate settings or in seriously substandard housing; still living at home with aging parents who do not know what will happen to their adult child when they can no longer provide for them; or are either homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless.

The need for decent, safe, and affordable housing for people with disabilities has never been greater. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead v. L.C. decision affirmed that – under the Americans with Disabilities Act – it is a violation of an individual's civil rights to deprive them of the opportunity to live in integrated community settings. (5) For most people with disabilities and their housing advocates, this means permanent and affordable housing of their choice.

Unfortunately, the number of affordable housing units available to people with disabilities continues to decrease rather than increase. According to HUD's Worst Case Housing Needs report, between 1997 and 1999 there was a 13 percent reduction (or 750,000 units) in units affordable to the poorest of the nation's citizens, including people with disabilities. In addition to the loss of these units people with disabilities have also lost access to subsidized housing units as a result of the implementation of "elderly only" housing policies. In 1997, using federal housing data, the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. (TAC) and Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force estimated that people with disabilities would lose access to 273,000 units of federally subsidized housing by the year 2000 because of "elderly only" housing policies - an estimate that appears to be on target. (6)

Other issues that have contributed to the housing crisis for people with disabilities include:

For people with disabilities, the past decade has proved that "a rising tide does not lift all boats," and that the housing problems of the poorest Americans became worse as rental housing costs rose. Unfortunately, during the past decade, there has been no comprehensive federal housing policy to address the housing crisis that was predicted by housing advocates for people with disabilities when "elderly only" housing policies were legalized in the early 1990s. Since that time, hundreds of thousands of HUD funded public and assisted housing units have been legally designated as "elderly only;" the Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities program has been cut by 50 percent; and federal preferences within the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, which clearly benefited people with disabilities, have been repealed. Although Congress has made more than 40,000 new Section 8 vouchers available to people with disabilities, many more are needed to address the unmet need for housing assistance.

Key Housing Affordability Questions

In order to promote a stronger and sustained commitment from government housing officials to give a high priority to the housing needs of people with disabilities, it is important to be able to document both the nature and extent of the need. For this reason, TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force undertook the Priced Out in 2000 study. The goals of this of this study were to: (1) update the information included in the Priced Out in 1998 study; and (2) compare 1998 and 2000 results to determine whether the housing needs of people with disabilities had changed during that period of time.

The key questions for the Priced Out in 2000 report were:

Methodology

Priced Out in 2000 uses the following four data sets to analyze housing affordability for people with disabilities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in each of the 2,703 housing market areas of the country used by HUD to administer federal housing programs:

The National Low Income Housing Coalition's Housing Wage

The National Low Income Housing Coalition – a national organization dedicated solely to ending America's affordable housing crisis – is committed to educating, organizing, and advocating to ensure decent, affordable housing within healthy neighborhoods for everyone. As part of this commitment, the National Low Income Housing Coalition annually publishes Out of Reach: The Growing Gap Between Housing Costs and Income of Poor People in the United States, a rental housing cost analysis that is similar to Priced Out in 1998 and Priced Out in 2000 but targeted to all low income households.

Out of Reach contains income and rental housing cost data for the 50 states and the District of Columbia by state, metropolitan area, and county, as well as a housing wage for each of these localities. The concept of the housing wage was developed by the National Low Income Housing Coalition to demonstrate what a full time worker must earn per hour in order to afford rental housing at HUD's Fair Market Rent. Consistent with the approach in Priced Out, affordability in the context of the housing wage is defined as paying no more than 30 percent of income for rental housing costs. By comparing monthly SSI benefits to the National Low Income Housing Coalition's housing wage, housing advocates have an additional tool to illustrate the significant gap between housing costs and income for people with severe disabilities.

It should be also noted that several new and more accurate methods and approaches were utilized to obtain the findings included in this report: (10)

The Federal Government's Housing Market Areas

Most of the findings in Priced Out in 2000 are shown by housing market areas, as defined by HUD. For purposes of program administration, HUD divides the United States into specific housing market areas – including counties, metropolitan, and non-metropolitan rural areas. Most urban areas (sometimes including their suburbs) are referred to as Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA) or as Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSA). Non-Metropolitan – or rural – areas are considered distinct housing market areas separate from SMSAs or PMSAs.

In order to present geographically specific housing cost data for people with disabilities in all parts of the country, Priced Out in 2000 provides summary income and housing market data by state, as well as for the housing market areas within the 50 states. Specific data is provided for each SMSA and PMSA. The data for the rural housing market areas of each state has been combined into one category to reflect one statewide figure for all rural areas. The data table showing all SMSA, PMSA, and rural areas listed by state is included in Appendix A. All of the data included in Appendix A has been weighted by the number of renter households residing in that market area (as provided by the National Low Income Housing Coalition) in order to provide the most accurate information possible.

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Chapter 2: Key Findings and Data Tables

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Key Findings

In 1998, TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force issued an original groundbreaking study that documented that people with disabilities receiving SSI were disproportionately poor and, as a result, were unable to afford modest rental housing anywhere in the country. Using SSI amounts and HUD income and affordability data, Priced Out in 1998 demonstrated that across the nation people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits had incomes equal to only 24 percent of a typical one-person's income.(11)

The key findings in Priced Out in 2000 described below document that people with disabilities lost more "buying power" in the rental housing market during the past two years, and were still the low-income group with the highest levels of unmet need for housing assistance in the United States.

Priced Out in 2000 documents that:

SSI Benefits as a Percentage of One-Person Median Income

Table 1, an analysis of SSI benefits by state compared to median income levels, clearly shows that the housing problems of people with disabilities are worse now than they were two years ago when Priced Out in 1998 was published. The data show a growing income disparity between people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits and a typical non-disabled individual's income. By 2000, the income of people with disabilities receiving SSI had dropped below 20 percent of the one-person median income for the first time in over a decade. Nationally, SSI benefits in 2000 were equal to only 18.5 percent of the one-person median household income.

Table 1 illustrates SSI benefits as a percentage of the one-person median income in every state in 2000. As shown in the table, in many states SSI income was equivalent to less than 20 percent of the average one-person's income. In 4 states (Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey) and the District of Columbia the income of a person with a disability receiving SSI was equivalent to less than 15 percent of the average one-person's income. Even in areas where there is a state-funded SSI supplement added to federal SSI benefits, people with disabilities had disproportionately low incomes. In fact, in 14 of the 22 states that provide a state SSI supplement, SSI benefits were still less than 20 percent of the average median income. This data proves that government assisted housing – not modest increases in SSI benefits – is the solution to the housing problem for people with disabilities.

Table 1: SSI Benefits as a Percentage of One-Person Median Income

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Percentage of SSI Benefits Needed to Rent a One-Bedroom Housing Unit

Table 2 shows that, in 2000, people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits could not afford to rent a modestly priced one-bedroom unit in any state in the country. As a national average, a person with a disability needed to spend 98 percent of his/her monthly income to rent a modest one-bedroom housing unit.

Housing affordability and the need for housing assistance is measured primarily by the percentage of income that a household must pay each month for housing costs, including utilities. The higher the percentage of household income paid for housing, the less affordable that housing becomes for that low-income household.

This standard is also used by the federal government to determine the relative need for housing assistance among all low-income households. Under current federal guidelines, housing is considered affordable when the cost of monthly rent plus utilities does not exceed 30 percent of monthly household income.(12) Those households that pay between 30 and 50 percent of their income towards housing costs are considered to be "rent burdened" by the federal government. When the percentage of income spent on housing costs exceeds 50 percent, the household is considered to be "severely" rent burdened and have "worst case" needs for housing assistance.

Table 2: Percent of SSI Benefits Needed To Rent a One-Bedroom Housing Unit


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Using the federal 30 percent rent-to-income standard, Table 2 documents that people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits could not afford to rent a modest one-bedroom unit in any of the 50 states. Table 2 illustrates this fact by comparing state SSI benefit levels to 2000 HUD Fair Market Rent levels for one-bedroom units. A unit at the Fair Market Rent is meant to be modest, not luxurious, costing less than the typical unit of that bedroom size in that city or county. The HUD Fair Market Rents used to calculate housing affordability were effective as of October 1, 2000.

Table 2 illustrates that in 14 states and the District of Columbia, one-bedroom units renting at the HUD Fair Market Rent actually cost more than 100 percent of SSI monthly income. In Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia, a person with a disability receiving SSI would have needed to spend over 125 percent of their monthly income towards housing costs. Even in Oklahoma – the most affordable state – people with disabilities still have "worst case" housing needs because they must have paid at least 63 percent of their income for a modest one-bedroom unit. The map geographically displays the percent of SSI needed to rent a one-bedroom housing unit in each state.

Map: Percent of SSI Benefits Needed to Rent a One-Bedroom Apartment


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Summary of Affordability of Modest Efficiency and One-Bedroom Rental Units by State and HUD's Housing Market Areas

Appendix A of this report, provides geographically specific information on the affordability of housing for people with disabilities who received SSI benefits. A sample of Appendix A – data for the State of Colorado – is reproduced in Table 3.

Appendix A is organized by state and includes data specific to the 2,703 metropolitan and rural areas (referred to as "housing market areas") within the United States used by the federal government in the administration of most federal housing programs. These 2,703 housing market areas include counties, Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs), Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSAs), and Non-Metropolitan or rural areas within each state.

Each year, the federal government uses census data and other statistical databases to provide information to state and local housing officials, including median income levels and HUD Fair Market Rents calculated specifically for that area. Government housing officials use this information on income levels and housing costs to make critical decisions regarding the current and future use of federal housing funding which will be available in that locality.

Because Appendix A presents rent and income information within a context that is familiar to state and local housing officials, it can be an extremely helpful tool for housing advocacy purposes. It can be used by disability advocates to engage state and local housing officials, and provide specific information on the housing needs of people with disabilities in that housing market area. Table 3 highlights one section of Appendix A, illustrating the housing affordability problems confronting people with disabilities in the federally defined housing market areas of the State of Colorado.

Table 3: Housing Affordability in the State of Colorado


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Table 3 illustrates that it was virtually impossible for a person with a disability receiving SSI benefits to rent modest housing anywhere in the state of Colorado. In 2000, Colorado had SSI benefits equal to $512 per month and was not one of the states that provided a SSI state supplement. Statewide, a person with a disability had an income equal to only 16 percent of the median income. At this income level, a person with a disability receiving SSI in Colorado would have needed to pay, on average, 91.6 percent of his/her monthly income to rent a modest efficiency unit, and 106.2 percent of his/her monthly income to rent a one-bedroom unit. Table 3 also illustrates the relationship between SSI and wage data, which is discussed further in Chapter 3.

Within Colorado's seven federally defined housing market areas the cost of a one-bedroom rental unit ranged from a low of 83.4 percent of SSI in the Grand Junction PMSA to a high of 129.1 percent in the Boulder-Longmont housing market area. Clearly, people with disabilities receiving SSI were "priced out" of the rental housing market in Colorado in 2000.

Housing Market Areas Requiring More Than 100 Percent of Monthly SSI Benefits to Rent a One-Bedroom Unit

Table 4 documents that – although the country as a whole enjoyed increased prosperity – people on fixed incomes such as SSI benefits were negatively affected as housing costs rose. The 123 housing market areas of the country shown in Table 4 – including much of California, Colorado, Florida, and New Jersey – have one-bedroom rental housing costs that were actually more than an individual's entire monthly SSI check.

Table 4: Housing Market Areas Requiring More Than 100 Percent of Montly SSI Benefits to Rent a One-Bedroom Unit


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Table 4 indicates that in nine housing market areas rents for one-bedroom units were at least 50 percent higher than monthly SSI benefits. In the Non-Metropolitan area of San Miguel County, Colorado, one-bedroom units cost more than twice the monthly SSI benefit amount. Some major metropolitan areas where housing costs exceeded 100 percent of SSI benefits include: San Francisco, CA; Washington, DC; Miami, FL; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Detroit, MI; Las Vegas, NV; Newark, NJ; New York City, NY; Cleveland, OH; Philadelphia, PA; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; and Seattle, WA.

Increases in SSI Benefits Compared to Increases in Housing Costs

The negative effects of a booming economy on people with disabilities can be clearly illustrated by comparing SSI benefit level increases to the increase in housing costs. Table 5 compares the rate of growth in SSI benefit amounts to the rate of growth in HUD Fair Market Rents in each state from 1998 to 2000.

As Table 5 indicates, cost of living adjustments in SSI benefits did not keep pace with the increasing cost of rental housing. Nationally, housing costs increased 6.3 percent while SSI benefit levels rose by less than 4 percent over the past two years. In 6 states (California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, and Virginia) housing costs increased more than 10 percent between 1998 and 2000. In California, because of a small increase in the state SSI supplement, SSI benefits increased by 6.4 percent but this increase still did not keep pace with housing costs. Table 5 clearly demonstrates why the housing crisis for people with disabilities is worse today than in 1998 and that – with the exception of California – the "buying power" of people with disabilities in the rental housing market continued to decline.

Table 5: Increases in SSI Benefits Compared to Increases in Housing Costs


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Chapter 3: SSI and Hourly Wage Data

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Since some people with disabilities receiving SSI do not work regularly, many disability researchers do not focus on hourly wage data. However, given recent changes to federal regulations that provide for greater flexibility in maintaining benefits when employed – such as health insurance and SSI – hourly wage data has become another useful method for analyzing how much "buying power" a person with a disability has in the housing market.

SSI Benefits Expressed as an Hourly Wage Rate

Comparing the value of SSI benefits to the amount of income received by an individual working full time at the 2000 federal minimum wage of $5.15 can help illustrate the extreme poverty of people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits. To illustrate this comparison, in Table 6 state SSI levels have been converted to the equivalent hourly pay rate for a full-time job at 40 hours a week.

Table 6 documents that as a national average, SSI benefits were equal to an hourly wage rate of only $3.23 per hour. In all 50 states, people with disabilities receiving SSI had less income than individuals working full time at the 2000 federal minimum wage of $5.15. In fact, in 35 states and the District of Columbia – including 8 states that added a state supplement to the federal SSI payment – SSI income was still less than 60 percent of the income earned by a minimum wage worker. Only in Alaska – which had the highest state SSI supplement in the country – was monthly SSI income equal to an hourly wage slightly over $5.00; however in no state in the nation did SSI income equal the federal minimum wage.

Table 6: SSI Benefits Expressed as an Hourly Wage Rate


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Housing Wage as a Percentage of Hourly SSI Benefits

In September 2000, the National Low Income Housing Coalition published Out of Reach, a national analysis of rental housing costs. Out of Reach contains income and rental housing cost data for the 50 states and District of Columbia by state, metropolitan area, and county or, in the case of New England, town. For each locality, it provides the income that renter households would need to earn to pay the rent and keep their housing costs at 30 percent of their income - referred to as the housing wage. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the housing wage is computed by dividing the household income needed to afford the HUD Fair Market Rent for a unit with the specified number of bedrooms (e.g., 1 bedroom: $18,080) by 52 (weeks per year). That figure is then divided by 40, for the number of hours per work week. (e.g., $18,080/52 = $347.69; $347.69/40 = $8.69).

As indicated in Table 7, as a national average, a low-income person needed to earn $10.11 per hour to be able to afford a modest one-bedroom unit in 2000. As is shown in Table 6, a person with a disability receiving SSI had an income equivalent to an hourly rate of only $3.23 - less than one third of the housing wage necessary to pay rent in modest rental housing.

Table 7 clearly demonstrates that in no state did a person with a disability receiving SSI benefits have enough income to meet the National Low Income Housing Coalition housing wage standards for renting a modest one-bedroom housing unit. In fact, in three states (Hawaii, New Jersey, and New York) and the District of Columbia, the housing wage was four times the amount of SSI benefits. Even in Arkansas – the state with the lowest housing wage – the housing wage is more than twice SSI benefit levels.

Table 7: Housing Wage as a Percentage of Hourly SSI Benefits


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Chapter 4: Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

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Priced Out in 2000 accurately documents the extremely difficult housing affordability problems that people with disabilities receiving SSI benefits confront in today's rental housing market. Unfortunately, it also documents that these problems have become much worst during the past two years. Despite the "wake-up" call sounded by the publication of Priced Out in 1998, the nation's affordable housing policy makers and housing providers have still not responded.

Like other low-income elderly and family households, people with disabilities must rely on government housing programs to help them obtain affordable housing. Yet recent HUD data indicates that people with disabilities represent only 13 percent of the households assisted by federally subsidized housing programs, a disproportionately small share relative to the need. The demand for federal housing assistance for people with disabilities is also certain to increase in the years ahead as states respond to the U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead decision and seek housing assistance for people with severe disabilities now living inappropriately in "restrictive settings" including institutions, nursing homes, and other facilities.

It is also unrealistic to suggest that the answer to the housing problems experienced by people with disabilities receiving SSI should be to raise SSI benefits. As Priced Out clearly documents, even in states with SSI supplements, people with disabilities still do not have enough income to compete for housing in today's high cost rental housing market. Medicaid or other funding for health care and supportive services cannot solve the housing problems of people with disabilities who want to have a real home of their own – whether that home is a small studio in an urban area, a one-bedroom condominium in the suburbs, or a small single family home in a rural community.

TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force Policy Recommendations

TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force believe that the solution to the housing affordability problems of people with disabilities exists within the federal government's subsidized housing programs. To address the worsening housing crisis confronting people with disabilities across the country, and to ensure that federal, state, and local housing officials expand housing opportunities for people with disabilities, TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force make the following recommendations:

Provide more access for people with disabilities to all HUD "mainstream" programs and the housing planning activities of state and local government housing officials

People with disabilities should have the opportunity to benefit from all of HUD's initiatives, including tenant-based rental assistance, housing production initiatives, as well as homeownership. This means ensuring that people with disabilities receive their "fair share" of federal HOME and CDBG funding, and that the disability community is an active participant in the development of housing strategies within state and local Consolidated Plans. Special attention should be paid to the extremely limited incomes of people with severe disabilities to ensure that all programs are made truly "affordable" to people with incomes below 20 percent of the median. Legitimate HUD efforts to expand homeownership opportunities should not re-direct resources away from those with the lowest incomes who will continue to need rental housing.

Continue to target new Section 8 vouchers to people with disabilities and improve monitoring of "elderly only" housing designation activities by federally subsidized public and private housing providers

The important progress made through the leadership of Congress since 1996 to address the loss of public and assisted housing for people with disabilities through the Section 8 voucher program should continue. At least 6,000 new Section 8 vouchers will be needed each year as Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) and HUD assisted housing providers continue to designate "elderly only" housing. HUD should immediately move to complete an inventory of all assisted housing projects that have been designated "elderly only," as Congress requested the HUD Secretary to do over three years ago. The inventory is needed to prevent the pervasive housing discrimination recently documented in a recent HUD report to Congress titled Assessment of the Loss of Housing for Non-Elderly People with Disabilities. The inventory will also help to direct new Section 8 vouchers to communities that have experienced the greatest loss of housing for people with disabilities. Better HUD monitoring of public housing designation activities and the administration of new Section 8 vouchers set-aside for people with disabilities by PHAs is also needed to remedy serious problems created by the lack of HUD oversight.

Modernize and improve the Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities program

The Section 811 program has been poorly utilized by HUD and needs major legislative reform as well as a substantial increase in appropriations. An appropriation of $346 million for FY 2002 would restore the program's funding level to the amount signed into law by the last Bush Administration. In addition to restoring needed funding, HUD should work closely with disability advocates and with Congress to ensure that Section 811 funding can be used more flexibly to develop, rehabilitate, purchase, or rent small scale or scattered site housing desired by people with disabilities. These legislative and regulatory reforms are essential to speed up production and eliminate years of cumulative "red tape" and bureaucracy. The primary focus of the program should continue to be production of housing for people with the most severe disabilities with no more than 25 percent for the funding being targeted for tenant-based rental assistance (as set forth in Section 843 of Public Law 106-569). All Section 811 funds should be provided exclusively to non-profit disability organizations rather than to PHAs that have demonstrated little interest or capacity to serve people with severe disabilities. To meet the needs of people with severe disabilities, a new non-profit administered Section 811 rental assistance program should be created so that the current practice of converting Section 811 tenant-based funding to Section 8 vouchers can be eliminated.

Strengthen the role and capacity of non-profit disability organizations to become more involved in affordable housing activities

As demonstrated in the TAC/CCD Housing Task Force recent policy report Going It Alone: The Struggle to Expand Housing Opportunities for People with Disabilities, there is a significant need to provide HUD-funded technical assistance and capacity building on housing issues to non-profit disability organizations and to the disability community as a whole. Unfortunately, the housing system rarely engages the disability community in housing discussions. The disability community must take the lead to establish these partnerships. To do so effectively, the disability community needs a much better understanding of federal housing programs and policies, and how they can work to assist people with disabilities. Using private philanthropic funds, TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force have taken the lead to provide this information through publications and information available on their websites. To become truly effective, HUD needs to be a partner in this effort.

Continue to direct McKinney/Vento Homeless Assistance funds towards permanent housing for people with disabilities

During the past few years, HUD's policies regarding Homeless Assistance funds have been modified virtually every year, with both positive and negative outcomes as a result. Congress and HUD must bring stability and accountability to these important programs, and continue to re-orient them to their original purpose, which was to expand permanent supportive housing for homeless people with disabilities. All permanent rental assistance and operating subsidy funding should be renewed by HUD for projects in compliance with statutory and regulatory guidelines. All states and localities should be provided with a clear understanding of their obligations and responsibilities with respect to any planning requirements under the Continuum of Care model. TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force believes these goals – not the block grant versus competitive grant issue - should be the most important aspects of any legislative reforms.

Formulate new affordable housing production policies that include a focus on HUD's response to the U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead v. L.C. decision

Tenant-based rental assistance programs such as Section 8 cannot be the sole foundation of federal housing policy to assist households with incomes below 30 percent of median income. A balanced housing policy for people with disabilities and others at the bottom of the economic ladder must also include the construction of new rental housing through a new National Housing Trust Fund which targets people below 30 percent of median income. Federal efforts to assist states in implementing plans to downsize institutions and help adults with severe disabilities move into the community under the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision should not focus solely on small HUD programs that only serve people with disabilities (e.g. the Section 811 program, the Section 8 Mainstream and Designated Housing voucher programs). They should also focus on providing access to all of HUD's mainstream housing production programs, including HOME and Community Development Block Grant. HUD guidance to communities regarding the Olmstead decision should also suggest revising local and state Consolidated Plans' needs assessments, if necessary, to include the supportive housing needs of those individuals with disabilities living unnecessarily in "restrictive settings."

Address and prevent housing discrimination, enforce the Fair Housing Act accessibility guidelines, and provide reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities in all HUD programs and policies and in the private housing market

HUD, as well as all recipients of HUD funding, should be held accountable for compliance with the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, including the removal of all barriers and impediments which have a negative impact on the access of people with disabilities to affordable housing programs. Training and technical assistance should be made available to the disability community regarding the reasonable accommodation and reasonable modification provisions of the Fair Housing Act and Section 504. Steps should also be taken by HUD to ensure that people with disabilities are not being discriminated against when PHAs and private owners of HUD assisted housing seek to restrict occupancy to households age 62 and older. HUD should also work closely with the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the units developed in federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit developments, including ending discriminatory practices such as the refusal to accept Section 8 voucher program participants. Finally, more HUD leadership is needed to ensure the full compliance and enforcement of the accessibility provisions of the Fair Housing Act in the private housing market. Affordable and accessible housing is critically important for people with mobility or sensory impairments.

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Endnotes:

(1): Opening Doors: Recommendations for a Federal Policy to Expand Housing Opportunities for People with Disabilities, Technical Assistance Collaborative Inc. 1996

(2): Data as of December 1999 from the U.S. Social Security Administration available online at www.ssa.gov/statistics/Supplement/2000/7a.pdf.

(3): By definition, very low-income renters below 50 percent of median income who do not receive government housing assistance are considered to have "worst case" housing needs if they spend more than half of their gross income on housing costs or live in severely inadequate housing.

(4): Because HUD does not count people with disabilities in certain residential settings (i.e. living at home with aging parents, people in institutions, etc.) TAC and the CCD Housing Task Force believe that the HUD estimate of 1.3 million undercounts the number of people with disabilities who are eligible for HUD assistance and may have an acute housing problem.

(5): Issue 12 of Opening Doors has more information about the Olmstead decision.

(6): Opening Doors: Recommendations for a Federal Policy to Expand Housing Opportunities for People with Disabilities, Technical Assistance Collaborative Inc. 1996

(7): On January 2, 2001, HUD issued revised Fair Market Rents reflecting increases for 39 housing market areas. These revised FMRs were not utilized in Priced Out in 2000. Instead, this report used the original FMRs effective October 1, 2000.

(8): Median income data is available at www.huduser.org/datasets/pdrdatas.html.

(9):Note that some states provide SSI supplements for people with specific types of disabilities and/or people with disabilities residing in specific housing arrangements (such as congregate living or structured residential settings). Only those supplements uniformly applied to all people with disabilities living independently in the community were included as part of the analysis.

(10): These computations were not utilized in TAC's original report, Priced Out in 1998: The Housing Crisis for People with Disabilities.

(11): Information provided by the National Low Income Housing Coalition regarding the number of renter households in each housing market area has shown that the data included in the 1998 report actually understated the severity of the crisis facing people with disabilities.

(12): For most federal housing programs, a household receiving housing assistance is not permitted to pay more than 30 percent of its income towards housing costs.

 

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