This is the result of what a small handful of advocates can and have accomplished. DAC thanks Barbara Gilley for bringing this issue up before our Governor at a meeting held June 17, 2004. We also thank the other advocates attending that represented all Virginian's. They were, Doris Ray, Jill Jacobs, Barbara Gilley, Wally Sabin, Linda Theisen, Phil Theisen and Keith Kessler.  Great job all, as we've now accomplished at least two of the several issues presented resulting from our governor's meeting and we're still hoping for more...........


 

Commonwealth of Virginia
Office of the Governor

Mark R. Warner
Governor

June 23, 2004

The Honorable Alphonso Jackson
Secretary
U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 th Street, S. W.
Washington, D.C. 20410

Dear Secretary Jackson:

I am writing to express my most serious concerns over recent changes in the Housing Choice Voucher program and the impact those changes augur for people with disabilities. I have met with advocates from across the Commonwealth who described to me personal challenges that seem disproportionate for people with disabilities needing housing supports. I am urging you to consider what I am sure are unintended consequences brought about by budgetary pressures.

Housing is a critical need, made even more so for people with disabilities who depend on income supports from the Social Security Administration, where Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments are as low as $565 per month. Recent studies have indicated that there is not a single Metropolitan Statistical Area within the United States in which an individual receiving SSI can afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment using HUD's Fair Market Rent guidelines. With the 1999 Olmstead Supreme Court mandate that people with disabilities receiving services in institutions be served in appropriate community settings, the need for housing supports at all levels is even more critical today. There is an obligation to expand housing supports rather than restrict them.

The recent changes in the Housing Choice Voucher program are particularly troublesome for people with disabilities for several reasons. A reduction in administrative fees has resulted in a diminished capacity of program administrators to provide the outreach and assistance services necessary to support people with disabilities who are searching for accessible, affordable housing. Landlord recruitment into the program has historically been a challenge and can be expected only to worsen as a result of the administrators' reduced service capacity.

HUD has indicated that increased flexibility in the voucher program will allow administrators to shift income mix, which would improve the budgetary shortfall only if the number of extremely low income participants or the amount of the rent subsidies were reduced. These are precisely the strategies that target people with disabilities - most certainly, an unintended consequence. I urge you to consider the potentially devastating impact this would have on SSI recipients and other extremely low-income people with disabilities.

Other budgetary curtailment strategies available to administrators, such as time limitations, reducing the payment standard amounts for currently leased units, raising minimum rents, eliminating exception rents, reducing vouchers in circulation by not reissuing unused ones, for example, would prove equally devastating to people with disabilities who have extremely low incomes. Given the current public policies that define income supports for this group of citizens, it is clear that rent support policy changes such as the ones currently being implemented target the most vulnerable segment of people with disabilities and pose a significant threat to attempts to implement the spirit and intent of the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead.

For these reasons I am asking you to delay any further implementation actions until a complete review of the impact of this policy on people with disabilities can be completed. While I am fully aware of the budgetary challenges represented by these policy changes, I am more concerned about the lives of the citizens that will be displaced and disrupted if we fail to give full consideration to the disproportionate impact of this policy on people with disabilities.

Sincerely,  
<signed>
Mark R. Warner

MRW/cmg

Cc: The Honorable Jane H. Woods
      Secretary of Health and Human Resources            

      Ms. Jan Faircloth
      Virginia Liaison Office

Keith Kessler  -------  Founder of *DAC*    
(DISABLED ACTION COMMITTEE)
14405 Artery Ln#11
Dale City, VA 22193
703-878-1737 - 11am-6pm (please)
email - DAC4VA@aol.com

or     Keith Kessler  Attn: DAC   

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