| Contents | Foreword | Intro | Findings | Using PO in '06 | Appendix A | Appendix B | Appendix C | Appendix D |
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Introduction
Overview
Across the
These shocking statistics are the most important findings included
in Priced Out in 2006 – a new study of the severe housing affordability
problems of people with disabilities who must survive on incomes far below the
federal poverty line. The study compares the SSI monthly income of people with
serious and long-term disabilities to local U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) Fair Market Rents for modestly priced rental units in
2006. Priced Out is published
every two years by the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC) and the
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force to shine a
spotlight on our nation’s most compelling – and least understood – housing
affordability crisis.
In 2006, the national average income of a person with a disability
receiving SSI was $632 per month. Priced
Out in 2006 reveals that rents for modest one-bedroom units were equal to
113.1 percent of monthly SSI payments, and studio/efficiency rents were 100.1
percent of SSI during 2006 – shutting people with disabilities out of the
rental market in every city, town and rural area of the country.
In the
Perhaps the most shocking revelation in Priced Out in 2006
is the precipitous and relentless decline in housing affordability for SSI
recipients since 1998 when the first edition of Priced Out was
developed. During the past eight years,
as housing programs that can help the lowest-income people with disabilities
were slashed, modest one-bedroom rents rose an astonishing 64 percent compared
to SSI – from 69 percent to 113.1 percent of SSI. During that time, SSI income dropped 26
percent compared to the one-person median income. The root cause of the nation’s most severe –
and most hidden – housing crisis is clearly revealed in the painful statistics
included in the 2006 edition of Priced Out.
The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program
SSI is the federal income maintenance program that provides
financial support for people with significant and long-term disabilities who
have virtually no assets.1 In 2006, an estimated 4 million people
between the ages of 18-64 relied on SSI to pay for their basic needs –
including housing.
In 2006, federal SSI monthly income was $603. In addition to the federal payment, 21 states
provided an additional SSI supplement to individuals living independently,2 raising the national average SSI payment to
$632 per month or $7,584 per year.
Despite these state supplements, the national average income of a single
person household relying on SSI was almost 25 percent below the federal poverty
level of $9,800.
The Nation’s “Hidden” Housing Crisis
This devastating crisis is clearly apparent on the streets of our
nation’s cities and towns where it is reflected in the faces of homeless people
with disabilities who sleep on our sidewalks and park benches. However,
homelessness is only the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to understanding
the number of vulnerable people with disabilities who are completely priced out
of the nation’s rental market.
The true magnitude of this housing crisis remains hidden from most
Americans – including most elected and appointed officials who could do
something about it. To learn its full
dimensions, one must look behind the doors of nursing homes, institutions, and
substandard board and care homes where people with disabilities are “placed”
because they cannot afford decent housing in the community.
Community integration proposals recently submitted to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) identified 25,000 people across
17 states who will move from costly facilities supported with Medicaid and
state government funds to housing in the community during the next few years.3 These people represent a very small
percentage of the hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities who today
may be living unnecessarily in restrictive settings primarily because there is
no affordable housing available.
Hundreds of thousands of other adults with serious and long-term
disabilities have “hidden” housing problems because they continue to live
tenuously at home with aging parents.4 These parents have saved the
government – and the taxpayers – enormous sums of money by continuing to
provide housing and support for their adult children. Many of these parents
need care themselves. They simply want the assurance that their adult child
will have a decent, safe, affordable and accessible home in the community –
linked with supportive services if needed – when they are no longer able to
provide it.
In addition to people who receive SSI, the
high cost of rental housing also affects many people receiving Social Security
Disability Income (SSDI) or Veterans Administration (VA) benefits. Tragically, a significant percentage of
veterans of the
HHS Community Integration Policies at Risk of
Failure
Ironically, current federal policies – including HHS “Money
Follows the Person” and Real Choice Systems Change initiatives – are intended
to help people eligible for SSI to move from institutional settings or their
family home to integrated housing of their choice in the community. Disability advocates repeatedly have warned
federal officials that HHS policies promoting community integration will fail
unless there is a parallel commitment to significantly increase federal housing
programs targeted to people with disabilities at SSI income levels.
Despite the obvious need, not one new federal housing resource has
been created to ensure that decent, safe, affordable and accessible housing
will be available when people participating in these HHS initiatives are ready
to move into the community. Incredibly,
since these HHS initiatives were announced, HUD has repeatedly proposed to
eliminate the development of new units under the Section 811 Supportive Housing
for Persons with Disabilities program – the federal program specifically
created for this purpose.
The Solution – Rent Subsidies!
Federal housing affordability guidelines provide that very
low-income households should pay no more than 30 percent of their income for
housing costs – approximately $200 per month for a person receiving SSI in
2006. As Priced Out documents,
even in the nation’s lowest cost housing markets, rents for decent and safe
studio/efficiency apartments are well over $400 per month and rise above $800
in high cost markets.
A monthly rental subsidy – provided through federal programs such
as the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program and the Section 811 Supportive
Housing for Persons with Disabilities program – is essential to close this
housing affordability “gap” for people with disabilities with extremely low
incomes. Rent subsidy programs ensure that people pay a reasonable portion of
their monthly income for rent and utilities and have money left to pay for
food, clothing, transportation, over-the-counter medical needs and other
essentials.
HUD Rent Subsidy Cutbacks
Despite highly touted HHS policies to help people with
disabilities move into the community, HUD rent subsidies for people with
disabilities have declined substantially during recent years. This decline is part of a full-scale assault
by HUD on housing programs that help the lowest-income people, and has
particularly affected programs that help
people with disabilities receiving SSI obtain affordable housing in the community.
The most striking example of this decline is the deep cut in new
units of supportive housing for people with disabilities funded through the
Section 811 program. This important program targeted exclusively to people with
the most serious and long-term disabilities has helped thousands of people move
successfully from institutions and other restrictive settings to affordable and
accessible housing in the community.
Over the past decade, the supply of new Section 811 units produced
each year has plunged from more than 3,500 units in the mid-1990s to a mere 790
units projected for 2007. It is truly
shocking that despite current HHS initiatives and the community integration
mandates of the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead decision, recent HUD
budget proposals recommended the complete elimination of all new Section 811
housing production.
The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program – HUD’s most
important rent subsidy program for households with extremely low incomes
including people with disabilities – also has been under attack by federal
officials trying to reduce so-called “discretionary” spending. Approximately
2.1 million vouchers have been created by Congress over the past 30 years, and
at least 75 percent of these vouchers must go to households with incomes at or
below 30 percent of median income. During 2006, an estimated 150,000 vouchers
were not provided to people on Public Housing Agency waiting lists because of
insufficient funding. Since 2003, HUD
has proposed repeatedly to end the voucher program and divert its valuable
funding away from the lowest-income households most in need of assistance.
A Bold Response is Essential
A bold response from the federal government is essential to
reverse these harmful policies and initiate a systematic approach to provide
people with disabilities the housing assistance they need and deserve. With this edition of Priced Out, the
CCD and TAC call on the federal government to commit to a multi-year plan to
create a minimum of 150,000 new federal rent subsidies for people with
disabilities with the lowest incomes.
While bold in comparison to current federal policies and funding
levels, the CCD/TAC plan is based on reasonable production and appropriation
levels that received bi-partisan support just a few years ago when rental
housing for the most vulnerable Americans was considered an important federal
policy objective.
By simply committing to provide 10,000 new Housing Choice Vouchers
and 5,000 new Section 811 rent subsidies each year for the next ten years, the
federal government could achieve the laudable policy goals adopted by HHS. Failure to do so will mean that community
integration mandates so clearly articulated in the Americans with Disabilities
Act are merely words backed up by the empty promises of federal officials.