Priced Out in 2006 Affordable Accessible Housing

Introduction

Overview

Across the United States in 2006, people with disabilities with the lowest incomes faced an extreme housing affordability crisis as rents for moderately priced studio and one-bedroom apartments soared above their entire monthly income for the first time. The national average rent for a one-bedroom unit climbed to $715 per month and the studio/efficiency unit rent to $633 per month in 2006 – both higher than the entire monthly income of people with disabilities who rely on the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

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 Columbia, Maryland housing market area the federal Fair Market Rent for a modestly priced one-bedroom apartment was 193.2 percent of monthly SSI income – the highest level in the nation (see Figure 1). In New Orleans, modest studio/efficiency apartments soared to $755 a month – a 45 percent increase since Hurricane Katrina. In the rural areas of Nevada, the cost of a one-bedroom unit priced at the HUD Fair Market Rent was $603 – consuming the entire monthly income of a single individual receiving SSI in that state.

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 Iraq and Afghanistan wars are or will be eligible for VA disability payments. Based on current benefit levels and rental housing costs, many of these brave Americans will also be priced out of the rental housing market.

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.