STATEMENT OF ANDREW
SPERLING, DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY, NATIONAL
ON BEHALF OF THE
CONSORTIUM FOR CITIZENS WITH DISABILITIES HOUSING TASK FORCE
ON THE SECTION 8 VOUCHER
REFORM ACT
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING
AND COMMUNITY
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL
SERVICES
MARCH 9, 2007
Chairwoman
Waters, Representative Biggert and members of the Subcommittee, I am Andrew
Sperling. I am here today presenting
this statement on behalf of the Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities (CCD)
Housing Task Force The CCD Housing Task Force is a coalition of national
organizations representing people with disabilities, their family members,
providers of housing and supportive services and advocates. Among the groups that are part of the CCD
Housing Task Force are Easter Seals, the United Spinal Association, United
Cerebral Palsy, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the National
Disability Rights Network, Paralyzed Veterans of America, the American Network
of Community Options and Resources, Mental Health
Non-Elderly
People With Disabilities Are Priced Out of the Rental Housing Market
People with
disabilities have the highest level unmet need for housing assistance of any
group eligible for federally subsidized housing assistance. A new Technical Assistance Collaborative
(TAC/CCD Housing Task Force study – Priced
Out in 2006 – documents the alarming housing crisis experienced by
extremely low income people with disabilities who need assistance from the
Housing Choice Voucher program.
The study compares HUD Fair Market rents for modest housing to the
monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) received by people with the most
serious and long-term disabilities in 2006.
Among the key findings are the following:
The
Importance of Section 8 to Non-Elderly People With Disabilities
During recent
years, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program has been the primary
resource – and sometimes the only resource – available to begin to address the
housing needs of people with disabilities in local communities. The CCD Housing Task Force believes that
Congress should continue to have the responsibility to protect people with
disabilities who receive Section 8 vouchers or who need Section 8 assistance.
Section 8 is literally a “lifeline” for people with disabilities who want to
live normal lives in the community but cannot afford the cost of even modest
rental housing. HUD data reveal that in
most agencies, as many 20% of households receiving Section 8 are headed by
individuals with disabilities. This means
that as many as 300,000 to 400,000 of the estimated 2 million tenant-based
vouchers currently in use are being utilized by people with disabilities to
access affordable rental housing. This
far outstrips other HUD programs that are specifically targeted to people with
disabilities such as Section 811 and the permanent housing programs under
McKinney-Vento.
The
Disability Community Supports SEVRA
The CCD
Housing Task Force would like to express support for the current draft of the
SEVRA legislation. In our view, this
legislation would make a number of important changes to make the Housing Choice
Voucher program more responsive to the affordable rental housing needs of
non-elderly people with disabilities.
1)
SEVRA
would establish a more efficient voucher funding policy
SEVRA’s
most important change would be to establish a new formula for distributing
voucher renewal funds to state and local housing agencies. Since 2004,
funds have been provided under a series of flawed formulas that have given some
agencies less funding than they need to cover the costs of their vouchers — forcing
them to cut back on assistance to needy families — while providing other
agencies with more funds than they can use. SEVRA would replace this
flawed formula with one that would match funding more closely to an agency’s
actual needs and reward agencies that use more of their voucher funds.
That would encourage housing agencies to put more vouchers into use, while at
the same time ending the waste that occurs under the current system.
CCD is extremely pleased that the FY 2007 continuing
funding legislation that cleared Congress last month largely adopts the renewal
formula in SEVRA. This is a major step
in addressing the
inefficiencies in the Section 8 rental voucher funding formula that has been
used over the past three years. This new
formula (based on 12 months of cost experience) will replace one that was based
on outdated information that has resulted in the net loss of as many as 150,000
vouchers since 2004, basing funding closer to actual rental costs and leasing
rates.
2) SEVRA helps streamline the rules for
determining tenants’ rent payments
As
you know, tenants in HUD’s rental assistance programs are required to pay 30
percent of their income for rent, after certain deductions are applied.
SEVRA would streamline several aspects of the process for determining tenants’
incomes and deductions in order to reduce administrative burdens on housing
agencies and private owners of subsidized housing.
Most importantly, SEVRA also would allow housing agencies to review the incomes
of tenants with disabilities living on fixed incomes (such as SSDI and SSI cash
benefits) every three years, instead of every year and to assume that in the
intervening two years, the tenant’s income rose at the rate of inflation (which
is used to make annual cost-of-living adjustments to many fixed-income
benefits).
In
addition, SEVRA also makes a number of important changes in rent calculations
to that will allow people with disabilities with the lowest incomes some modest
relief in their rent burden and provide them some help in meeting basic living
expenses. These include statutory
changes to earned income disregard and standard deductions for people with
disabilities and seniors. These changes
will continue to provide incentives to help people with disabilities achieve
(and more importantly maintain) employment.
SEVRA would also require agencies to base rents of working people with
disabilities on actual earnings in the previous year rather than on anticipated
earnings in the coming year, which would minimize the need for subsequent
mid-year adjustments in rents. CCD looks forward to working with the
Subcommittee to ensure that any changes made by SEVRA to rent calculations or
earned income disregards do not inadvertently create a disincentive to
employment for people with disabilities.
Finally, to
reduce administrative burdens, as well as improve the effectiveness of the
voucher program for people with disabilities, CCD recommends that PHAs be
granted the authority, without having to seek HUD approval, to increase the
payment standard as a reasonable accommodation to persons with
disabilities. The proposed language is
taken from the 2002 Sarbanes voucher reform bill, and is consistent with
previous HUD Section 8 Certificate and Voucher Program policy that was in place
from 1976-1998. Specifically, such authority would allow PHAs to approve
exception rents for people with disabilities up to 120% of the payment standard
as opposed to the 110% in place now (under the old certificate program it was
120%, but was changed by HUD to 110% in 1999).
3)
SEVRA creates greater flexibility for agencies while maintaining targeting to
extremely low-income households
Currently,
a housing agency must allocate 75 percent of the vouchers it issues each year
to households with incomes at or below 30 percent of the area median income
(AMI). In areas with unusually low median incomes, this requirement
prevents agencies from serving certain needy families, including some low-wage
working families. SEVRA would address this issue by requiring agencies to
issue 75 percent of their vouchers each year to households with incomes at or
below (a) 30 percent of the local median income or (b) the federal
poverty line, whichever is higher. This would give added flexibility to
agencies in the lowest-income areas while maintaining the program’s emphasis on
assisting the families most in need.
More
importantly, SEVRA keeps in place a basic principle of current law with respect
to the Housing Choice Voucher program – targeting to extremely low-income
households. This is a critical element
of the voucher program for the disability community. ELI targeting ensures that non-elderly people
with disabilities living on SSI are able to effectively access the voucher
program. Over the past two decades, we have
seen other affordable housing resources – especially public and assisted
housing increasingly adopt targeting and occupancy rules that disfavor people
with disabilities. This has occurred as
a result of “elderly only” housing policies and enhanced flexibility for PHAs
and private owners. As a result, Section
8 has become one of the few remaining resources that can serve individuals
living on SSI (as noted above, these individuals are at an average of 18.19
percent area median income).
Loosening
of overall income targeting rules would be a disaster for people with
disabilities. The State of the Nation’s
Housing 2006 report by the
The
Disability Community Opposes Massive Expansion of Moving To Work
The CCD Housing Task Force is
especially concerned that SEVRA not be used as an opportunity for expansion of
the Moving to Work program. As you know,
the MTW program began as a public housing demonstration program in 1996.
Approximately 25 of the 30 public housing agencies (PHAs) selected by HUD to
participate in MTW still have active demonstration programs. HUD’s January 2004 evaluation of MTW found
that the demonstration was not designed as a rigorous research demonstration
with clearly defined changes to be evaluated or a set of controls for the
comparison of outcomes. The disability
community is concerned that expansion of MTW would endanger a range of
protections that currently exist in Section 8 and allow agencies to use their
discretion to:
·
Separate
of rents from incomes, leaving open the likelihood that rents could be raised
far above what residents with extremely low incomes can afford (people with
disabilities living on Supplemental Security Income – SSI).
·
Shift
scarce housing resources away from residents with the lowest incomes, who have
the greatest housing needs.
·
Impose
time limits on housing assistance.
·
Allow
agencies to impose higher minimum rents and work requirements.
We at CCD are especially
concerned that this increased flexibility would also allow public housing
agencies to disregard their statutory requirements in order to cope with
continued funding cuts. Further, neither HUD nor any reputable independent
research organization, has yet to undertake the research, accountability and
tracking needed to reach definitive conclusions as to whether or not MTW has
achieved any recognized outcomes. What
is clear is that current residents, particularly extremely low-income
individuals (including people with severe disabilities) in need of affordable
housing, must be protected from MTW’s worst outcomes, including shifting scarce
resources to higher income groups, implementing unaffordable rents and
requiring draconian time limits and work requirements.
Project-Based
Voucher Reforms
In 2001,
Congress substantially revised the authority for housing agencies to use
voucher funds to enter into contracts for project-based rental assistance. It was not until October 2005 that HUD
finalized the regulations implementing the program. Though the final regulations addressed many
of the challenges encountered during the initial years of operation under the
revised statute, lingering obstacles still inhibit the ability of agencies to
partner with private-sector partners to promote development of effective models
such as permanent supportive housing targeted to people with disabilities.
The CCD Housing
Task Force supports the Velazquez Amendment that was added to HR 5443 last
year, as well as language in the current draft of SEVRA that would give PHAs
flexibility in setting rents for units receiving project-based voucher
assistance, including for units also benefiting from the Low Income Housing Tax
Credit (LIHTC) assistance. In addition,
CCD urges this Subcommittee to consider additional improvements that would
allow for:
·
Better
coordination with other federal housing programs;
·
Meet
the accessibility and/or service needs of people with disabilities and
individuals that have experienced chronic homelessness for whom tenant-based
vouchers may fall short; and
·
Strengthen
partnerships between PHAs and private-sector housing providers.
HUD Must Ensure
Accountability For Vouchers Targeted to People With Disabilities
Over the past decade,
Congress has set aside two major allocations of tenant-based rental assistance
for non-elderly people with disabilities.
First are the so-called “Frelinghuysen” vouchers for non-elderly people
with disabilities in communities where public and assisted housing has been
designated as “elderly only”. There were
approximately 50,000 of these vouchers allocated by Congress between 1997 and
2001. Second is the Mainstream Housing
Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities tenant-based assistance program
that is funded and renewed through the Section 811 Supportive Housing for
Persons with Disabilities program. There
are approximately 14,000 of these vouchers that were awarded to PHAs and
non-profit organizations.
In recent years, CCD has
become increasingly concerned that HUD has exercised little oversight over how
PHAs are administering these vouchers to ensure that they remain available as
Congress intended only for the targeted population – non-elderly people with
disabilities. It was not until February
2005 that HUD issued guidance to PHAs detailing their ongoing obligation to
ensure that these vouchers remain targeted upon turnover to the population
Congress intended. This is especially
troubling in the case of Mainstream tenant-based vouchers funded from Section
811 since the renewal burden –now over $80 million – consumes more than 30
percent of the entire Section 811 appropriation for 2007. More troubling is the fact that the proposed
50% cut in the President’s FY 2008 budget for Section 811 – if enacted – would
mean that these 14,000 Mainstream vouchers would absorb more than 75 percent of
the entire Section 811 budget.
Madam Chair, the CCD Housing
Task Force looks forward to the opportunity to work with you to ensure that
HUD’s follows up on this 2005 guidance to PHAs and increases oversight and
compliance with housing agencies regarding their obligations to target these
resources to the population Congress intended.
Conclusion
Madam Chair and Members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the
CCD Housing Task Force. The Housing
Choice Voucher program is extremely important to people with disabilities,
including the 3+ million people with serious and long term disabilities who
rely on the federal SSI program for all their basic needs. The SEVRA legislation is an important step …
We look forward to working with you on this critical legislation.
American Association of
People with Disabilities
American Network of Community Options and Resources
American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Easter Seals
Lutheran Services in America
Mental Health America
National Alliance on Mental Illness
National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors
National Disability Rights Network
The Arc of the United States
United Cerebral Palsy
United Spinal Association