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
Recommendations for Federal Policy Changes
to Increase the Supply of Affordable Housing
The NCD recommends the following to increase the supply of affordable housing:
• Increases in rental housing prices have combined with a shortage of Section 8 rental housing vouchers to pose growing difficulties for those who need this kind of assistance. Although vouchers represent at best only a partial and temporary solution, their use and availability should be maximized and rationalized during the time required for other, longer-term measures to begin taking effect.
• The tax code offers several strategies for increasing the supply of accessible housing. Three measures can be recommended for further study: enactment of an accessible housing credit, expansion of the architectural barrier removal deduction, and restriction of tax advantages realized in connection with newly built or substantially renovated residential property that does not meet accessibility standards prescribed by law.
• Revise the contents of required federal and state disclosure statements to include information on a home's degree of accessibility.
• The Community Reinvestment Act should be revived and amended to clarify its encouragement of investments in community-based accessible housing.
The NCD also recommends Congress and the administration develop initiatives to ensure affordability of housing so that people with disabilities have choice in housing options, including
• Establishing home modification programs, such as tax deductions approved by the Internal Revenue Service, that would enable individuals with all types of disabilities to eliminate barriers and enjoy the full use of their dwellings (e.g., by installing flashing doorbells for people who are deaf, providing ramps and structural modifications for people with mobility disabilities, lowering cabinets and environmental controls for people of short stature and adding soundproofing for people with psychiatric disabilities);
• Giving priority to those most in financial need, for example, allocating 50 percent of the units developed under the affordable housing formula to people whose income is below 30 percent of the federal poverty level;
• Requiring rental agents and building owners to consider housing vouchers as income so that people holding vouchers will be assessed for eligibility in the same manner as applicants without vouchers;
• Requiring banks and mortgage companies to consider housing vouchers as income so that people holding vouchers will be eligible for mortgage funding in the same manner as applicants without vouchers;
• Ensuring that individuals with disabilities have equal opportunity to satisfy equity requirements for sweat equity home ownership programs, including acknowledgment of nonphysical labor;
• Requiring that vouchers and Section 8 certificates be portable across state lines.