News Feature

NCD #02-382
August 27, 2002
Contact: Mark S. Quigley
202-272-2004
202-272-2074 TTY
mquigley@ncd.gov

National Council on Disability Feature: People with Disabilities Need Affordable Housing

WASHINGTON--The National Council on Disability (NCD) released its 2001 annual National Disability Policy: A Progress Report (http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/progressreport_07-26-02.html) on July 26, 2002. The Report highlights a number of issues related to housing for people with disabilities, including fair housing and equal opportunity, housing supply, and home ownership.

Shortages of affordable housing are widely recognized as representing one of the major problems facing people of moderate and low incomes in our country today. For people with disabilities, this problem is even more acute, because affordability is also conditioned by inaccessibility, availability, and discrimination. According to a recent study, while levels of home ownership for most Americans are at near historic highs, rates of home ownership for Americans with disabilities remain shockingly low, languishing in the single digits.

Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
In a recent major report, Reconstructing Fair Housing (http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/fairhousing.html), NCD catalogued serious, pervasive, and persistent weaknesses and failures in the Federal Government's enforcement of nondiscrimination laws in the area of fair housing, the findings and recommendations of which are described in NCD's Progress Report.

• Organization of the Enforcement Effort: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is responsible for enforcing three major civil rights laws-the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Primary responsibility is vested in HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, but various cycles of reorganization, decentralization, and recentralization have occurred over the years. HUD also has an Office of Disability Policy, but its role in the enforcement process and its relationship to other units of the department are not entirely clear. Enforcement budgets have declined steadily since 1989.
• Complaint Handling and Case Processing: As of 1999, 42 percent of all HUD complaints received were disability discrimination complaints. As described in a recent report, the average age-of-case at disposition was 497 days, nearly five times the 100-day benchmark period fixed by Congress. Even when cases were concluded by HUD, few ended in findings of "cause" and fewer still in any adjudication or enforcement action being taken. Dealing with the backlog of cases is an important matter. NCD has cautioned against simply dismissing or otherwise purging the oldest cases, adding further injustice to that which is inherent in delay.
• Funding: In connection with efforts to upgrade HUD's fair housing enforcement, the department requested an increase in funding for fair housing and equal opportunity enforcement in its FY2002 budget request. Congress did not include these additional funds in the HUD budget appropriation. NCD hopes that the Administration will continue to seek funding for meaningful increases in fair housing enforcement, either through a supplemental budget request or through the achievement of savings in other HUD programs. NCD also recommends that any review of funding levels take the needs and importance of technical assistance programs into account.
• Accessibility Survey: As design practices and technology change, HUD should remember that we confront new accessibility issues that did not exist when the Americans with Disabilities Act and its implementing regulations were written. HUD should immediately begin inquiries necessary to issue regulations that will incorporate accessibility of air control, environmental control, and built-in appliances into the cannon of legally required measures.
• Visitability: This issue involves the incorporation of a number of accessibility features that make it possible for people with disabilities to enter, function reasonably within, and remain in dwelling units, whether or not those units have been specifically designed or designated for occupancy by people with disabilities. NCD strongly supports state and federal visitability initiatives and recommends that HUD take the steps necessary to make visitability an element of federal policy with respect to all new and renovated housing in our nation.

Housing Supply
Although vigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination laws in the short run and comparably vigorous implementation of accessible design requirements in the long run can contribute significantly to the supply of available and affordable housing, these laws cannot by themselves create the supply of housing that we need. Other measures designed to expand the accessible housing stock and aimed at making such housing affordable are necessary as well.

• Vouchers: 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. Realizing that vouchers represent at best only a partial and temporary solution, NCD nevertheless recommends that their use and availability be maximized and rationalized during the time required for other, longer-term measures to begin taking effect.
• Interim Strategies: 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. Non tax-based strategies include revising the contents of required federal and state disclosure statements to include information on a home's degree of accessibility. Finally, the Community Reinvestment Act should be revived and amended to clarify its encouragement of investments in community-based accessible housing.

Home Ownership
In addition to the inherent barrier created by low income, restrictive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) regulations and provisions governing other programs prohibit recipients of benefits under these programs from accumulating enough savings to afford the down payment and other costs associated with home purchase and ownership. Medicaid ordinarily allows people to keep their homes, but eligibility rules prevent people from buying homes in the first place. NCD proposes a pilot demonstration to be conducted under the authority of the Social Security Administration whereby SSI or Medicaid recipients would be allowed to establish home ownership accounts that could be used to accumulate funds that would not be subject to "countability" for purposes of income and resource limitations applicable to these and other-means-tested programs.

Government loan guarantee programs are one way of reducing these barriers. NCD recommends that the panoply of federal housing loan guarantees be reviewed for accessibility, for barriers, and for models that could allow information and assistance to be targeted more effectively to people with disabilities. Additionally, Congress should direct attention to whether approaches such as those designed to promote home ownership for teachers and public safety officers could be directed towards people with disabilities.

For more information, contact Mark Quigley or Celane McWhorter at 703-683-1166.