Study Finds Government Benefit, Rent Costs Gap
According to a report by the Consortium for
Citizens with Disabilities, the national average rent on a studio or
one-bedroom apartment is now 105 percent of the monthly SSI payment.
In big cities, rents run closer to twice the SSI check -- which is
supposed to pay all of someone's living costs, not just the rent.
The report also finds that in expensive rental markets, the cost of
rent has been going up about six times faster than increases to the
monthly Social Security check. |
June 17, 2003 -- For nearly 4 million poor people
with severe disabilities, a new report by the Consortium for Citizens with
Disabilities says that a key government subsidy has not kept pace with
rising rents. NPR's Joseph
Shapiro reports that the result is many people end up in sub-standard
housing, or sometimes living in unexpected places.
Anthony
White is just 26, and in the past year has lived in two hospitals and now
a nursing home in Washington, D.C. He came to the nursing home because he
needed medical care, but he stays -- largely because he has no other place
to go.
White was born with spina bifida and uses crutches, leg
braces and a wheelchair to move his large and heavy body. He was just 16
when his mother died, and White moved to his grandmother's
house.
Living conditions there were far from ideal -- he slept on a
blanket on the floor, and had to drag himself up the narrow stairwell to
the second-floor bedroom. That opened up sores on his feet, landing White
first in the hospital and later in the nursing home where he still
lives.
"His situation is unfortunately very common," says Marjorie
Rifkin of University Legal Services, a public law firm that represents the
disabled. She tells Shapiro there are many clients in desperate need of
housing -- but there's too little government-subsidized housing
available.
"And as a result, they end up spending years on the
waiting list for public housing or subsidized Section 8 housing, and we're
seeing fewer and fewer of those units available to people living on
extremely low incomes," she says.
A Social Security payment called
Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, is meant to provide a livable income
for people who are so disabled they have never been able to work. But
disability housing advocate Ann O'Hara says SSI has not kept up with the
rising cost of housing.
"In 2002, that benefit came from the
federal government in the amount of $545 a month -- and with that amount
of money it is literally impossible for a person to find a decent and safe
place to live, unless they were actually spending more than their entire
monthly income for that housing," she says.
O'Hara is the author of
the new Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities report, called Priced
Out in 2002. The findings of that report are troubling: Nationally,
the average rent on a studio or one-bedroom apartment is now 105 percent
of the monthly SSI payment. In big cities, rents run closer to twice the
SSI check -- which is supposed to pay all of someone's living costs, not
just the rent.
The report also finds that in expensive rental
markets, the cost of rent has been going up about six times faster than
increases to the monthly Social Security check. The gap between SSI and
actual rents, O'Hara says, is driving many people into what she calls the
"housing underground."
Other Resources
• Read the
full Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities report
• Technical Assistance
Collaborative
• University Legal
Services
