Community Housing for People with Disabilities:
Integrating Affordability and Supported Living: A White Paper
By Dale DiLeo
Lack of Affordable Housing is a Barrier to Supported Living
Does The Existence of Affordable Housing in a Neighborhood Lower Property Values?
Keys to Developing Affordable Housing
Overview of an Innovative Affordable Housing Project in Florida
Recommendations for Expanding Local Affordable Housing for People with Disabilities
Resources for Affordable Housing
Appendix
Recommendations for Federal Policy Changes to Increase Affordable Housing
Other State and Local Housing Initiatives
Keys to Developing Affordable Housing
In a report by the Consortium for People with Disabilities, they noted that:
"In recent years, an increasing number of states and communities have made progress in developing solutions that meet the affordable housing needs of people with disabilities. The most creative and successful strategies involve housing and service agencies thinking "outside the box," using all available housing resources and not just those targeted to "special needs" populations. For example, in some communities housing officials have combined mainstream Low Income Housing Tax Credit funds and Shelter Plus Care subsidies to create new supportive housing for very low-income homeless people with disabilities.
While creativity is important, it must be balanced by feasibility. Successful strategies are feasible and concrete. When brainstorming with housing agencies, the disability community should have a good understanding of exactly how certain affordable housing programs can be used. In other words, it is just as important to know what cannot be done with certain programs, as it is to know what can be done. For example, HOME funds can be used for tenant-based rent subsidies, but by law cannot be used for project-based rent subsidies.
It is also critical to determine that a strategy will work in a particular housing environment or housing market. For example, HOME-funded tenant-based rental assistance resources will be less effective if there is very little affordable rental housing in the area. Similarly, targeting HOME funds for the acquisition and rehabilitation of rental housing will be problematic unless there are organizations with the expertise and experience.
Finally, it is important for the disability community to keep in mind that many federal housing programs cannot be targeted to one subpopulation of people with disabilities (e.g., people with mental illness, people with mental retardation, people with physical disabilities, etc.). For this reason, partnerships and joint advocacy efforts among organizations that represent different disability populations can be very helpful when engaging housing officials in developing new housing strategies."