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Action Needed to Stem Loss of Housing

August 22, 2005-Critical housing resources for low-income people are again at risk as Congress works to cut spending. Protections against discrimination based on disability are also threatened. Lawmakers need your support to resist the Bush Administration's efforts to cut funding and roll back legal protections in current housing programs.

• Urge Congress to Hold the Line on Housing Funds
  
  
• HUD Proposes End to Fair Housing Program
  
  
• Comment Period on HUD Self-Evaluation Reopens

Hold the Line on Housing Funds
While Congress is in its summer recess, Senators and Representatives have been meeting with constituents about the economy and the soaring cost of housing. Affordable-housing developers, city officials and disability advocates like you are pressing lawmakers to respond to the housing crisis for low-income renters.

Congress resumes work on September 5^th and plans to adjourn on the 30^th, not to return until January. The Administration will insist that Congress enact its proposals in September. 

As you know, people with mental disabilities have the least income and the most difficult housing problems. That is why it has been critical to join with your community's affordable housing advocates to deliver the following messages:

• Fully fund all the housing and community development programs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
  
  
• Direct HUD to issue fair market rents that accurately reflect the cost of rental housing in the community and that restore funding to the rental voucher programs, which disappeared because of earlier, inaccurate fair market rent calculations.
  
  
• Establish a national Affordable Housing Fund, as many cities have done-funding programs that have been essential to the construction of affordable rental housing;
  
  
• Fully fund HUD's Fair Housing programs to restore lost resources and increase the level of enforcement against discriminatory barriers to housing.

On August 24^th, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a major analysis of the House and Senate FY 2006 appropriations bills on voucher funding and federal housing policy. Visit http://www.cbpp.org/8-24-05hous.htm to read the report and use its information to convey how the housing crisis affects the lives of low-income people with disabilities and how the Administration's proposals will worsen the crisis.

Calls to Senators Needed Now

Senators in the states listed below will vote on these critical housing issues.  If you live in one of these states, please call your Senator to point out that you will be paying attention to how he or she votes on the HUD appropriation. Call the Capitol switchboard, 202-224-3121, and ask for the Senator's office or find the direct number and email form in the roster of the Senate Appropriations Committee at congress.org:

            Alabama (Shelby)
            Alaska (Stevens)
            California (Feinstein)
            Colorado (Allard)
            Hawaii (Inouye)
            Idaho (Craig)
            Illinois (Durbin)
            Iowa (Harkin)
            Kansas (Brownback)
            Kentucky (McConnell)
            Louisiana (Landrieu)
            Maryland (Mikulski)
            Mississippi (Cochran)
            Missouri (Bond)
            Montana (Burns)
            New Mexico (Domenici)
            Nevada (Reid)
            New Hampshire (Gregg)
            North Dakota (Dorgan)
            Ohio (DeWine)
            Pennsylvania (Specter)
            South Dakota (Johnson)
            Texas (Hutchison)
            Utah (Bennett)
            Washington (Murray)
            West Virginia (Byrd)
            Wisconsin (Kohl)
            Vermont (Leahy)

HUD Proposal to End Fair Housing Program Flies in the Face of Evidence
Irony abounds. At the same time that HUD is proposing to slash its Fair Housing budget and eliminate its Fair Housing First Program, a HUD-funded study published on July 25^th shows that people with mental and physical disabilities were subjected to more incidents of housing discrimination than families with children, people of color and all of the other groups protected by fair housing laws.  Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities - Barriers at Every Step is available from HUD by calling 1-800-HUD-USER, or by download from http://www.HUDUSER.org. 

The study found that people with a variety of physical and mental disabilities were discouraged by rental agents from pursuing their rental inquiries, were denied requests for accommodations and modifications in their housing, and were refused service when they used telephone relay systems to communicate with housing providers and their agents. 

In addition to conducting the study, the Urban Institute prepared testing guidance for HUD. The Guidance for Practitioners is available in PDF format via the same phone number and website.  With the Guidance, it is possible to conduct tests of local housing and to pursue findings of discrimination with education and enforcement actions.

Comment Period Reopened on HUD Section 504 Evaluation
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is the only federal civil rights law that requires agencies that either give or get federal funds to assess whether their programs, activities and policies pose barriers to participation by people with disabilities.  On July 22, HUD published a Federal Register notice requesting public comments on its own self-evaluation. 

HUD may be only the second federal agency to conduct such a self-evaluation. (The Department of Justice was the first). HUD's evaluation identified structural and communication barriers in its headquarters and field offices. Unfortunately, HUD did not review its publications, regulations, policies or procedures to determine how they might be impeding enforcement of Section 504.

The Bazelon Center worked with the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities and the National Network of Disability Rights to submit comments to HUD. Our first comment was to ask for a longer comment period, which HUD approved. The comment period is now open and may remain so, since HUD has not published a second notice with new closing date. 

You may read our comments along with others submitted to HUD at http://docket.epa.gov/edkfed/do/EDKStaffCollectionDetailView?objectId=0b0007d48084e7fa

The HUD docket is open to comments about difficulties anyone has experienced in working with HUD because of physical or mental disabilities. The more examples HUD receives, the clearer the message will be that it must conduct its business in a non-discriminatory way, and that any barriers to non-discrimination must be identified and eliminated.

For more information, the sources mentioned in this bulletin are:

• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of proposed federal legislation, at http://www.cbpp.org/8-24-05hous.htm
  
• HUDUser report, Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities: http://www.huduser.org/publications/hsgspec/dds.html
  
• Testing Guidance for Practitioners: http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/DDS_Testing_Guidance.pdf
  
• Comments on HUD's Section 504 Self-Evaluation: www.hud.govhttp://docket.epa.gov/edkfed/do/EDKStaffCollectionDetailView?objectId=0b0007d48084e7fa

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