5,300 Housing Vouchers for Non-Elderly Persons with Disabilities

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by Steve Gold - 5,300 Housing Vouchers for Non-Elderly Persons with Disabilities. Information Bulletin #307 (4/2010).

Many of you remember the Information Bulletin issued on 6/30/09 announcing that HUD had issued a "Proposed Notice" - $30 million for 4,000 housing vouchers for non-elderly disabled persons.

HUD received 175 comments! Terrific response. Many of you wrote HUD! Many (not all) of the problems in the Proposed Notice have been eliminated or modified.

On April 7, 2009, HUD and CMS issued a joint release announcing a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA). The number of vouchers that will be available has increased to 5,300 and they're putting up $40 million. Here is web address for the NOFA:
http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/program_offices/administration/grants/fundsavail/nednofa.pdf

These vouchers will be awarded on a competitive basis. Your Public Housing Authority must apply for these in order to receive them. Now the fun really begins. You - advocates for persons with disabilities - must make sure your Public Housing Authority applies before July 7, 2010. HUD plans to announce the winners in October, 2010.

There are two categories of vouchers - Category 1 for 4,300 for persons with disabilities, and Category 2 for 1,000 persons with disabilities in institutions who want to live in the community but cannot afford to without a voucher. Public housing authorities can apply for both categories; maximum number of vouchers for housing authorities relates to the number of baseline units it already has, i.e., larger housing authorities can apply for more vouchers than smaller authorities, as well as other "threshold requirements."

Non-elderly disabled family means the head, spouse or sole member of the family is under 62 and the person with a disability. Can your housing authority identify such families on their waiting list?

A housing authority can use Category 1 funding for people in institutions as long as it establishes a preference under its housing choice voucher program. Category 2 funding is only for families transitioning from an institution to the community. For people who might be "at risk" of going into an institution, HUD states that "PHAs are encouraged to establish a preference for families at risk of institutionalization for Category 1...."

People in institutions - Category 2 folks - are not the natural constituencies of local public housing authorities. Also, most likely, people in institutions are not even on a public housing authority's waiting list. Therefore, some creative effort must be focused on this category. The HUD "Response to Public Comments," which is at the above web address, explains what housing authorities can do to address this issue.

Disability advocates should be contacting their State Medicaid officials immediately. Your State Medicaid officials know if there is a State agency that can apply directly for Category 2 vouchers. If there is, make sure this is actually happening. If there is no such State agency, then your State Medicaid officials (MFP and others) must quickly develop a relationship with local Public Housing Agencies! This will probably be a new venture for your State Medicaid officials and the Public Housing Agencies.

We do not expect your Housing Authorities to welcome you (or even your State Medicaid agency) with great enthusiasm because applying for these vouchers will take work, effort and time. Volunteer to help them.

In a number of States, we do not expect your State Medicaid officials to welcome you, because they have been so long not in the business of freeing persons with disabilities from institutions that such efforts are not part of their culture. Yikes, free people. What a novel idea.

Yes, nothing comes easy! You have 90 days. The clock is running. There are disability advocates throughout the country who will help you. Let's us know if you need assistance.

Also, please keep a record of who you contacted, what dates, what they said, etc. We will collect it after 7/7/10.

Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues

Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.

To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@cs.com or call 215-627-7100.