Unaccessible Housing and Shelter Commonplace for People with Disabilities

Ally Kraemer/Flickr

In 2001, the District was sued in Young et al v. D.C. Housing Authority. The government was left under court order to provide more handicap and wheelchair accessible public housing. Much of this was provided in the form of single bedroom apartments. Now, as the number of homeless families grows steadily, it’s increasingly more difficult to find a handicap accessible unit for more than one person.

There is no such requirement for private landlords that provide affordable housing by accepting Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers.

“Over the last few years, the government has put an emphasis into housing people with disabilities though subsides,” Amber Harding, the program director of David M. Booth Disability Rights Initiative, said. “But when the time comes, it’s hard to actually find houses that are handicap accessible.”

Units that are wheelchair accessible are very hard to find and units without stairs are virtually non-existent, according to Harding.

Options remain limited as the affordable housing stock continues to decline. The District lost 25,000 low-cost apartments ─ units with a monthly rent of $800 or less ─ between 2002 to 2013, reports DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI), cutting the total number of units in half, according to a report from the (DCFPI)

The housing crisis is widespread, with local rents growing far faster than incomes for most renters. In 2013, the typical income of a middle class citizen rose $4,000, but this increase was completely negated as rents for the median-priced apartments rose $5,000, according to the DCFPI report.

Chronically homeless people have been most affected by the crisis. A chronically homeless person has experienced homelessness consistently or very frequently for over a year, and generally has a physical or mental health disability. Recently, government funding has shifted towards ending chronic homelessness.

President Obama’s 2016 fiscal year budget requests included a $265 million increase for The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Homeless Assistance Grants. If approved by Congress, this would work to end chronic homelessness in 2017 by creating supportive housing communities. In the long run, this act would save money by cutting down on emergency services and shelter costs.

In the meantime, many disabled homeless people wait for permanent housing solutions in shelters, where conditions are not much better.

“I see a lot of people with various health conditions–knee pain, back pain, other various chronic pain conditions–having a hard time because of the way shelters are run,” Harding said. “You must walk up and down stairs, wait in line, and perform other actions people with chronic pain just can’t.”

Attorney Will Merrifield believes that all people have a human right to housing, and one of the major problems in getting a roof over everyone’s head is the unbending nature of the rules and regulations regarding shelters and housing.

“If there’s no money at the time, there’s nothing that can be done,” Merrifield said. “You can have the most disabled, sick homeless person on their death bed, but the system is just like ‘too bad, that’s the way it works.’”

While people suffering from mental and cognitive disabilities don’t require handicap accessible housing, there are other barriers that hinder them.

According to Harding, homeless people suffering from cognitive conditions such as depression, dementia, or ADD often struggle with landlord discrimination or an inability to navigate barriers to housing such as obtaining a birth certificate or social security number.

July 26 marked the 25-year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was created to remove discrimination against disabled people in many areas — including housing. Yet Harding and Merrifield agree that in order to create a comfortable limbo between housing for people with disabilities, the professional culture needs to change.

“We need to treat people as individuals, not as a large group,” Harding said. “We manage behavior rather than serve people. People with disabilities are being denied there legal rights due to the fear of a ‘slippery slope of exceptions.”

 


Issues |Disability|Housing


Region |Washington DC

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