Housing crunch particularly hard on disabled

Social Security checks not going far enough in metropolitan areas

CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md. -- Multiple sclerosis gave Monica Spann bouts of debilitating fatigue, weakness in her legs and vision problems. It also left her scrambling for a place to live.

As her disease progressed, the single mother found it harder to navigate the stairs in her home. Soon she was no longer able to work and couldn't afford the rent.

Spann spent months living with her two children in her parents' basement until she found a place she could afford that didn't have stairs. But "afford" is a relative term: After the rent is paid, the family is left with just $860 from Spann's $2,010 monthly check from the Social Security Administration to pay for everything else. Her situation recently became even more tenuous when she was cut off from Medicaid and found herself without any health insurance.

The affordable housing shortage plaguing Washington and other metropolitan areas has come down particularly hard on the disabled, who have higher rates of poverty and lower rates of employment. At the same time, much of what is affordable is off-limits to them because it's not accessible. Housing advocates say the problem will only get worse, as the rate of disability increases with the aging population.

Spann said she was shocked that keeping a roof over her family's head would turn out to be such a challenge.

"I never even thought that would be a concern because there are a lot of people living on Social Security or disability," Spann said recently. "I see this is nothing someone can live off of. It's really not -- especially when you have children."

High rents are not just a problem for the disabled. The nationwide slump in the housing market has done little to ease the affordability crisis in pricey markets such as Washington, where the median home price in 2006 was $431,000 -- nearly twice the national median.

According to an Urban Institute report on housing in the capital region, almost half of the area's renters were spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing -- the accepted standard for affordability.

The Center for Housing Policy released a study this year that examined 210 metropolitan areas. It found that workers in two of the fastest growing job categories, retail salespeople and food preparation workers, would not be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment by the 30 percent standard in any of the areas.

For the poorest Americans, housing would be out of reach even if they spent every penny of their income on it. A 2006 report by two non-profits, the Technical Assistance Collaborative and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, found that the average rent for a modest one-bedroom apartment was equal to 113 percent of the average income of a disabled person relying on the federal Supplemental Security Income program. That's up from 69 percent in 1998, when the biennial study was first published.

Against this backdrop, people looking for housing that is both accessible and affordable face a double whammy, said Margery Austin Turner, who led the Urban Institute's study. She said the problem is not a lack of accessible units, but the absence of any mechanism to match them with potential tenants.

Under federal law, disabled renters can make adjustments to their homes, but they have to pay for it out of their own pocket. Landlords can require them to undo the modifications when they leave.

Djuna Mitchell, director of community services at the ENDependence Center, said competition for accessible housing is fierce.

"When someone with disability finds accessible housing, they tend not to move, so that pool shrinks," she said.

Demand is expected to grow. In the Washington region, the total population is expected to increase by 57 percent by 2040, while the disabled population is projected to grow by 68 percent to more than 855,000, according to the Urban Institute report. The study's authors based that forecast primarily on the projected increase in the elderly population.

Advocates for the disabled say the solution lies in broader rent subsidies, as well as zoning changes to encourage development of housing with support services. State or regional databases like one developed in Massachusetts can help match accessibility features -- whether it's a lack of stairs, doorways wide enough for wheelchairs or a specially designed bathroom -- to potential tenants who need those things.