Libby Perl
Specialist in Housing Policy
The ability of persons with disabilities to live independently in affordable, accessible housing became a prominent issue starting in 1999 as the result of a Supreme Court decision, Olmstead v. L.C. The court held that institutionalization of persons with mental disabilities in lieu of community-based care may constitute discrimination. Shortly after the Olmstead decision, on February 1, 2001, President George W. Bush announced the New Freedom Initiative, an effort through multiple federal agencies to ensure full participation in society of persons with disabilities. Part of the New Freedom Initiative was Executive Order 13217, which implemented the Olmstead decision by ensuring (among other things) that all people with disabilities, not just those with mental illness, benefit from community-based treatment.
In order to ensure that persons with disabilities may live in community settings rather than in institutions, affordable and accessible housing is necessary. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) operates a number of programs that provide housing for persons with disabilities in various ways. The Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities program is authorized to provide capital grants and project rental assistance to nonprofit developers of housing targeted specifically to persons with disabilities. Prior to creation of Section 811, persons with disabilities lived together with elderly residents (defined by HUD as households with one or more adults age 62 or older) in developments funded through the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program.
The project-based Section 8 and Public Housing programs give project owners the option of dedicating facilities to elderly residents, residents with disabilities, or both populations together. Over the years, both the Section 811 and the tenant-based Section 8 programs have set aside housing vouchers for persons with disabilities. And two HUD block grant programs—HOME and the Community Development Block Grant—may be used by states and communities to construct or rehabilitate housing for persons with disabilities. In addition to these HUD programs, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), administered by the Internal Revenue Service, may be used by states to target housing to special needs populations, including persons with disabilities. The LIHTC may be used in conjunction with HUD grants, including capital grants through the Section 811 program.
In FY2012, Section 811 rental assistance funds were made available to be used in conjunction with capital funding from other sources (such as LIHTCs and HOME funds). This new use of rental assistance was authorized as part of the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act (P.L. 111-374), and is referred to by HUD as the Project Rental Assistance Demonstration. HUD released a Notice of Funding Availability for the rental assistance in May 2012. P.L. 111-374 instituted other changes to the Section 811 program: authorizing that the source of funding for Section 811 tenant-based rental assistance be converted to the Section 8 program; decreasing the concentration of housing units for persons with disabilities by limiting the units in multifamily housing dedicated to persons with disabilities to 25% of the total; and delegating the processing of mixed finance developments to state housing finance agencies.
Date of Report: January 28, 2013
Number of Pages: 40
Order Number: RL34728
Price: $29.95
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