December 7, 2006
Governor-Elect Deval Patrick
56 Roland Street, Suite 100 D
Boston, MA 02129
David Abromowitz, Esq.
Co-Chair, Patrick-Murray Housing Working Group
Goulston & Storrs
400 Atlantic Avenue
Boston, MA 02110
Patrick Lee
Co-Chair, Patrick-Murray Housing Working Group
Trinity Financial
40 Court Street
Boston, MA 02108
Recommendations to Governor-Elect Patrick to Address the
Housing Needs of Individuals Living with Disabilities
Dear Governor-Elect Patrick, Mr. Abromowitz, and Mr. Lee:
United Disability Housing Partnership is a coalition of organizations dedicated to expanding housing opportunities for low-income and homeless individuals living with a wide range of disabilities. United Housing is made up of 60 member organizations, representing well over 250,000 persons across Massachusetts.
We are writing to you today about the housing needs of persons with disabilities. As you know, with its high housing costs, Massachusetts’ housing market is one of the most difficult for low income individuals. For those living with significant disabilities, the challenge is that much greater – not only is affordability a barrier, but many must also consider issues of physical accessibility.
As the new administration prepares to take office, there is a unique opportunity to establish specific goals to address the Commonwealth’s housing crisis. Below, we have outlined several programs and legislative initiatives that are essential to addressing both the issue of housing affordability and the lack of appropriate housing stock for persons living with disabilities.
Rental Assistance:
Disproportionately low income, many persons living with significant disabilities rely almost exclusively on SSI for their income. The monthly SSI payment ($708) is wholly inadequate to afford housing in any Massachusetts community, according to HUD standards.
In these cases, rental assistance programs are vital to bridge the gap between a person’s income and the fair market rent of a home. Two programs in particular are of vital importance to this end.
Alternative Housing Voucher Program (AHVP)
Created in 1995 to address the issue of younger persons with disabilities living in the same housing developments as seniors, AHVP is a valuable tool that allows low income persons with disabilities to afford to live independently. AHVP originally funded 800 vouchers, but due to budget cuts, it now provides rental assistance to little more than 500 individuals.
We ask that you work with the legislature to increase funding for AHVP to at least restore the program to its original level of 800 vouchers.
Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP)
MRVP is the largest state-funded rental assistance program. While MRVP is not specifically targeted toward persons with disabilities, more than 50% of the households that receive MRVP vouchers are headed by a person with a disability.
Although MRVP provides invaluable rental assistance to more than 4,000 individuals and families, that number is less than half of the program’s 1997 peak of 9,646 vouchers. With rapidly escalating housing costs in Massachusetts, more vouchers must be made available to those who desperately need them.
United Housing believes that a reasonable goal for the Patrick administration would be to work to restore sufficient funding for MRVP so that the 1997 voucher level is once again achieved.
Expanding Housing Stock:
While rental assistance is important, equally vital is expanding the number of housing units that are available for persons living with disabilities. There are a number of state programs that will require additional bond cap funding to create the new homes necessary to address the existing need.
Facilities Consolidation Fund (FCF) and
Community Based Housing (CBH)
FCF is an important housing creation program that provides assistance in constructing housing units for individuals who are clients of the Department of Mental Retardation (DMR) or the Department of Mental Health (DMH). Currently, there exists acute housing needs among both of these populations that additional FCF funding could help address.
Recognizing that there existed a significant number of individuals with disabilities who were not served by either DMR or DMH, but who had significant housing needs, the legislature created the CBH program. As its name implies, the CBH program creates affordable, accessible, and safe housing in the larger community for persons with disabilities. Although the program is relatively new, it has achieved notable success in creating homes that will allow persons with disabilities to live independent lives in the community.
FCF and CBH are state bond-funded programs that have had a stagnant funding level of $1.25 billion for the past several years. We strongly support an increase in the bond cap to support these and other important state capital efforts.
Surplus Properties
With the advent of more cost-effective, humane, community-based services, it is now possible to consolidate former and current state hospital and state school sites, which saves valuable tax dollars and frees the sites for new uses. However, with large unmet housing needs for Department of Mental Health (DMH) and Department of Mental Retardation (DMR) clients, any state hospital or state school property that closes and is sold must provide benefits for the people with disabilities that once used such facility.
This past fall, in response to a questionnaire from United Housing, Governor-Elect Patrick wrote:
Disabled individuals and their families are increasingly seeing community care as the best choice. Massachusetts has made efforts and significant progress toward the rebalancing of the long term care system through support of community-based services … I will continue this progress.
United Housing calls on the incoming administration to work closely with the legislature in passing and enacting legislation that will establish clearly-defined principles for the disposition of former state schools and state hospitals that sets aside a significant portion of funds to address the housing needs of those individuals who otherwise would have been served by those institutions.
Housing First:
Nationally, there has been a concerted effort to address the issue of chronic homelessness. This work is inextricably tied to the issue of disability housing, as a disproportionately high percentage of chronically homeless are individuals living with disabilities that make maintaining stable housing a challenge.
Numerous recent studies have shown that the Housing First initiative has achieved notable success. By making housing available to chronically homeless individuals, and by making support services available when needed, it is possible to achieve stable housing at significant financial savings to the state.
We would encourage you to examine closely the Housing First initiatives that have been implemented around the country and to look to bring such efforts here to Massachusetts.
Please feel free to distribute these recommendations to the entire Housing Working Group. United Housing looks forward to working with the new administration on achieving the mutual goal of addressing the housing needs of low income and homeless individuals living with disabilities.
If you have any questions or would like more information about the housing needs of persons living with disabilities, please contact Matt Noyes at 617-927-0088 x26 or mnoyes
ahc.org.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned Members of United Disability Housing Partnership