Last week, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) made the rare decision to loosen its purse strings and allocate $98.5 million in housing choice vouchers—a federally-subsidized rent program for low-income people also known as Section 8—to 285 public housing authorities across the country. But these aren’t your regular housing choice vouchers, which are available to anyone making below 50 percent of the average income for their household size in their area. These estimated 12,000 vouchers are specifically meant to help low-income Americans who have a disability and are at risk of being homeless or institutionalized.
Ninety-nine of those vouchers are headed for Multnomah County. Home Forward, Multnomah County’s housing authority, has been handed the maximum amount of vouchers HUD has made available for one jurisdiction, valued at around $859,000. It’s the first increase in any voucher funding Home Forward has seen in five years, outside of Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH).
“Decades of federal disinvestment have led to our local housing crisis and to similar affordable housing emergencies across the country,” said Michael Buonocore, director of Home Forward, in a media statement. “These 99 new vouchers are a very big deal for people at risk of institutionalization and an important step in the right direction from Washington, DC.”
Many people with disabilities are stuck in poverty solely because of their disability. If a person has a disability that may prevent them from maintaining a steady income, they often rely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks from the federal government to make ends meet. It’s not a longterm solution, however. According to a report by Technical Assistance Collaborative, average annual income of a single person receiving SSI payments in 2016 was 22 percent below the federal poverty level. In Oregon, the average rent for a person living on SSI would be 144 percent of their monthly SSI check.
Because of the feds’ long disinvestment in public housing, Home Forward has a miles-long waiting list for folks hoping to get a voucher. According to a recent Metro report, the average wait time for someone applying for public housing assistance in Multnomah County is 14 years. Home Forward spokesperson Tim Collier says that waiting list currently has 3,056 people on it. The 99 vouchers will be given to people with a disability who are already on the waiting list, and specifically for those already living in an institution. It won’t come close to covering the entire population of low-income people with a disability seeking stable housing—but it’s a start.
“Living in the community and having more freedom of choice are aspirations of many people with disabilities who live in institutions,” said Allen Hines, director of the Real Choice Initiative, in the press statement. “These vouchers create more opportunities for a group that often gets by on a fixed income, below the poverty line.”
This article leaves out a lot of facts There are two types of disability benefits. SSI is based on one’s assets (you can’t have more than x amount in cash and assets) and is collected by people with little or no work history, typically people disabled from birth. SSD is based one’s work history (you must have worked x amount of hours in the last 10 years in order to even be considered), because every paycheck one earns taxes are taken out for social security and medicare (FICA).
I do not know the process for qualifying as disabled for those who collect SSI, but I do know the process for qualifying as disabled for those who collect SSD. You must be unable to work, in any way, and you must have seen doctors and be seeing doctors and continue to see doctors – doctors who fill out and submit paperwork to the Social Security Administration that state the specifics of your disability and why you are unable to work. THEN the government reviews your application and the paperwork submitted by your doctors and IF THEY determine you are too disabled to work, they will approve you for SSD. After approval you receive your first SSD check (which is the same amount you would earn they had calculated your retirement benefit based on your earnings) in 6 months. TWO YEARS after you begin receiving SSD you qualify to sign up for Medicare (unless you have ALS, then you qualify immediately, because most people with ALS die within 2-5 years of being diagnosed). I also believe end stage renal failure also qualifies you for immediate sign up for Medicare. Afterwards, depending on the severity of your disability, your case is reviewed by the Social Security Administration every 2, 5 or 7 years and that review includes proof that you have been seeing doctors and receiving medical care for your disability (even if you have something like ALS or MS for which there is no treatment or cure).
All this being said, even with a voucher, knowing the cost of housing in Multnomah county, how will anyone be able to afford a place to live? And section 8 voucher housing typically has yearS long waiting lists.
The maximum monthly payment for SSI (for one person) in 2018 is $750.
The average monthly payment for SSD in 2018 is $1197.
Medicare part B is $134 a month and if you need medications you have to pay for Medicare part D and if you have a Medicare Advantage plan (which helps cover what original Medicare does not cover, which is a lot) you also have to pay that plan premium.
There is no average wait for section 8 housing for disabled people, as the wait lists vary by state (and location within each state) and the wait lists vary depending on number of qualified applicants (some people literally wait up to a decade to obtain housing, how or where they are living before they get the section 8 housing, who knows – many are homeless).
and 99 vouchers when there are over 3000 people on the waiting list is still leaving a lot of people twisting in the wind.