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How will people moving from institutions find housing?
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Aug. 7, 2001 -- The more than 3 1/2 million disabled people who get SSI (Supplemental Security Income) benefits have little chance of a home of their own, says a report out in June from the Boston-based Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. and the Washington, DC-based Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force. "Priced out in 2000" (online at http://www.c-c-d.org/POin2000.html) looks at "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."
Disabled people "are still the low-income group with the highest levels of unmet need for housing assistance," says the report. "The disability community must learn to use the housing advocacy tools that have been provided within federal law" says the report's appendix, "How to Use the Information in Priced Out in 2000" (online at http://www.c-c-d.org/AppB.html). "It is only ... through greater access to federal housing programs that the acute housing crisis currently facing people with disabilities can be addressed."
Because of the recent Bush Administration initiative to implement the U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead decisIon (see 6/26/2001 E-Letter), the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development held a conference call for advocates in July to discuss ways HUD's Section 8 program can be used for people coming out of institutions. The Collaborative's Ann O'Hara and Karen Tamley of Chicago's Access Living used the call to discussed ideas with advocates. Materials and the transcript of the call are online at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/mis.htm -- an instant replay of the call is available by phone as well, until August 17, at 888-566-0648.
For more from The Technical Assistance Collaborative, visit its Opening Doors newsletter website at http://www.c-c-d.org/intro_page.htm; its issue on Olmstead is at http://www.c-c-d.org/od-dec00.htm.
For more on the Bush Administration's Olmstead Executive Order, visit our website at http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/programs-policy/olmsteadexecorder061901.htm