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
Other Recommendations for Expanding Local Affordable Housing
for People with Disabilities
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities recommends the following at the state and local level to expand access to affordable and accessible housing for people with disabilities:
• Disability advocates need to educate housing officials about both the housing preferences of people with disabilities and the financing of subsidized housing that facilitates community integration.
Housing of this nature should be scattered-site and include free standing duplexes or other models, or could be a set-aside of units in a larger affordable housing development, including mixed-income developments financed with federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
Many housing officials are unaware of the models of housing that people with disabilities prefer. They may only be familiar with the single-purpose congregate housing model such as group homes, which includes on-site supportive services.
To promote the creation of deeply subsidized housing, the disability community will have to challenge housing officials to improve the coordination of housing financing and possibly change the way they allocate and distribute affordable housing funds. For example, state housing agencies that control federal housing resources - such as Low Income Housing Tax Credits, HOME funding, Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers, etc. - can develop a uniform application for funding that includes incentives for housing developers to combine resources and target new housing units for people with disabilities. Some states currently require that developers that receive Low Income Housing Tax Credits set aside a certain percentage of the units created for people with disabilities. To ensure that these units are affordable to people with disabilities with extremely low incomes, Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) are encouraged to provide Section 8 project-based vouchers to help subsidize the rents.
2. Disability advocates need to centralize information on affordable housing.
One step to improve access to affordable housing is to develop a database of all accessible and affordable housing developed with federal funds. As a result of federal fair housing laws, more new units of accessible housing are being developed each year. However, even in communities where new units of accessible housing are being built, it is often difficult for people to locate them. In addition, owners of housing financed with certain federal housing resources - such as Low Income Housing Tax Credits - are required to accept Section 8 vouchers in their units. These properties all have accessible units. What is missing is a mechanism to link voucher holders to vacant accessible units.
To address this problem, some states and localities have developed databases of housing developed with CDBG, HOME, Low Income Housing Tax Credits, and other federal housing resources, including information about the number of accessible units. To be most effective, these databases should be regularly updated, include all the units created throughout the state (i.e., not just those financed by state housing agencies, but also those funded by local cities and counties), and published in easily accessible locations, such as City Hall, local libraries, and online.
To take it a step further, localities can create an interactive housing registry listing all vacant units based on accessibility features. This type of interactive clearinghouse provides a "one-stop" approach for accessible and barrier-free units and minimizes the likelihood that they will be rented by people without disabilities.