Action Alert

Supportive Housing Bill Needs Senate Sponsors

November 10. 2009--Section 811 is a critical federal program that assists the lowest-income Americans with serious and long-term disabilities to live independently in the community by providing integrated affordable rental housing linked with voluntary services and supports.

The Senate is currently considering a bill to significantly broaden and improve the Section 811 program. The Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2009 (S. 1481) would spur creation of thousands of new 811 units every year by streamlining the competition process for new projects and authorizing a new and innovative investment program that fulfills the promise of true community integration as envisioned in the Americans with Disabilities Act (see the Bazelon Center’s August 5 Mental Health Policy Reporter).

The new program, a demonstration, would provide rental subsidies to create small set-asides of supportive housing units (e.g., 5%) for people with disabilities and SSI-level income in the hundreds of thousands of high-quality affordable rental housing developments produced routinely by state and local governments. The legislation would change the basic Section 811 model, which for 30+ years has produced small group homes and single-population independent living facilities but no longer responds to the housing needs and choices of most people with disabilities, who prefer to live in housing that is truly integrated in local communities.

he Melville Act, which has already passed the House, was introduced by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ).  It is currently in the Senate Banking Committee, whose chairmen, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) has expressed support for it. But the bill needs the support of a majority to ensure its passage out of the committee. (Of interest is video of and testimony from an October 29 hearing on the issue on the committee's website.)

What You Can Do

If one of your Senators is on the Banking Committee (listed below), please ask him or her to sign on as a co-sponsor of S. 1481. See How to Contact Your Lawmakers.

Explain that people with serious and long term disabilities, including those with mental illnesses, have the greatest unmet need for housing assistance of any group in the United States. S. 1481 would afford many of them the opportunity, through the Section 811 program, to live in permanent rental housing linked with the community-based services that they want and need.

Senate Banking Committee Members’ websites
(you can find their contact information there)

• Christopher Dodd, Connecticut, Chairman
• Tim Johnson, South Dakota
• Jack Reed, Rhode Island
• Chuck Schumer, New York
• Evan Bayh, Indiana
• Robert Menendez, New Jersey
• Daniel Akaka, Hawaii
• Sherrod Brown, Ohio
• Jon Tester, Montana
• Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
• Mark Warner, Virginia
• Jeff Merkley, Oregon
• Michael Bennet, Colorado

• Richard Shelby, Alabama, Ranking Minority Member
• Bob Bennett, Utah
• Jim Bunning, Kentucky
• Mike Crapo, Idaho
• Bob Corker, Tennessee
• Jim DeMint, South Carolina
• David Vitter, Louisiana
• Mike Johanns, Nebraska
• Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas
• Judd Gregg, New Hampshire

For more information about supportive housing, see the Bazelon Center's fact sheet on the issue.