Homelessness & Disability

Published July 18, 2009 @ 02:46PM PT

Two people, graffiti wall, cardboard box shelter from http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2007/11/1walk.jpg
More than 40 percent of the homeless population in the US are persons with disabilities, the July 16th Disability Scoop reports. The 150-page 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report was issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. From pp. 27-28:

Among adults, 17.7 percent of the U.S. population had a disability whereas an estimated 42.8 percent of sheltered homeless adults had a disability. A disability, particularly one relating to substance abuse or mental health issues, can make it difficult to work enough to afford housing. Indeed, the higher share of adults with disabilities in the poverty population (30.7 percent) relative to the U.S. population is an indication of this difficulty. People with disabilities are an even higher share of the homeless population than the poverty population, suggesting that disabled persons face additional difficulties in gaining access to permanent housing. People with disabilities may have difficulties searching for a unit or finding a landlord willing to rent to them. Their disability may make it less easy to accommodate them without adaptive supports [my emphasis].

Also, the ability of SSI and SSDI to avert homelessness among persons with disabilities is uncertain. In 2009, the average monthly SSI payment was $50416 (or about $6,048 annually) and the poverty rate for a single-person household was $10,830. Accordingly, the average annual SSI payment is about 44 percent below the poverty level, and thus people with disabilities who lack a sufficient work history to qualify for SSDI—common among people with severe mental illness or substance abuse issues—are more susceptible to deep poverty.

As the phrases I highlighted from the report suggest, not being able to work (or not being given the opportunity to work regardless of one's skills) can make affording housing difficult (impossible); further challenges remain as far as having access to housing, not to mention housing with accommodations and adaptive supports. Dora has written about the crucial importance of the Community Choice Act in providing long-term in-home supports for persons with disabilities, to provide a way out of institutions and nursing homes. And, too, the reasons for persons with disabilities not working or not looking for work are "because they are lazy" but, for instance, "being unable to both manage basic life activities and work at the same time; i.e. not an issue, just a fact for some."

The Homelessness blog at Change.org has an additional assessment of the 2008 report and notes that what especially needs to be looked at is performance. Certainly there are programs and initiatives set up but what is actually working, and what is not?

Share this Post

Comments (8)

This topic is too sad!!!

Posted by Twyla Ramos on 07/18/2009 @ 04:26PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Twyla
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
The number of homelessness in the United States (based on the typical definition of the word,) is MUCH higher than any statistic has ever shown.

The goal of SSI and SSDI is not to aid people in overcoming homelessness. The best way this is shown is by looking at how few who are provided SSI or SSDI ever go on to aquire other services that would supposedly bring them out of poverty. These services aren't geared to help at all.

Unfortunately, since very few people who are involved with providing these services or looking at who these services do and don't serve, the exclusivity and discouragement of these programs is rarely if ever recognised or accepted. The people who would be served by a closer look at these programs aren't seen as worthy of such an investment.

Homelessness and poverty are hard work. Unfortunately, those who serve as societies excluded are playing too much of a crucial role in the scheme of how exclusivity and privilage are maintained and protected for those who recieve the benefits of this system to provide opportunties for them to be anything other than what they are basically employed to do.

Posted by Ed none on 07/18/2009 @ 04:45PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Ed
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
I did a research paper a while back on homelessness and mental illness. The most interesting type of program I kept coming back to were sort of housing first programs. It seems, from what I read anyway, that if you give people permenant normalized housing (such as supportive SRO's or CILA's) at the beginning you both save money and have outcomes equal or superior to standard care (which usually involves treatment first, followed by temporary shelters, etc, where housing depends on the individual staying/"succeeding" at treatment or sober).

Posted by Erin Monk on 07/18/2009 @ 06:20PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- 1 person likes this comment. Like
Are there online links to any of your sources?

@Ed---what do some estimate is an actual statistic on the number of homeless?

Posted by Kristina Chew on 07/18/2009 @ 06:43PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Like
That's a good question but I don't know that there is any way to tell. In some cities there are sometimes (or at least there used to be) incentives to bring more of the homeless in on occasion just for them to be counted. If people have been abused and/or threatened by the law enough they won't trust much.

The landowners in States like California and Texas have too much of a financial investment in hiring mainly non registered migrant workers to be asking any more questions that they are. When these people are in between jobs and sometimes even when they are working they are homeless.

In cities like D.C. (where I've been homeless) I would estimate that over half of the homeless people are not accounted for anywhere. Lots of teenagers won't stay in the same shelters regularly to avoid being counted. Most who have been in state funded mental institutions don't want to be on record anywhere either.

There are still others who can only go to shelters when they're sober and many who are afraid of having a criminal check made on them if there name or social security number is known.

I hear all the time of more big cities where the police destroy tents and beat people in the park. This doesn't encourage people to trust that the system wants them to do better.

Posted by Ed none on 07/18/2009 @ 07:47PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- 1 person likes this comment. Like
Unfortunately my report and my original sources are stored on a floppy disk, and my computer doesn't have a floppy drive (I'll have to get around to converting them to flash drives before floppys become obsolete!). But a quick google of "housing first" comes up with a couple links. There's actually more information on it now than when I did the report (I think I did it for a sociology course I took in 05?) .

http://www.endhomelessness.org/section/tools/housingfirst

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_first (this has a relatively decent overview and some good links).

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/4/651

http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/51/4/487

Posted by Erin Monk on 07/19/2009 @ 10:50AM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Like
Reply to thread
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Erin
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
Kristina, in Canada at least, many of the ~17% of the population who are disabled are seniors, and I think they have access to more housing solutions, so I expect that if you took that into account the proportion of young homeless people who have a disability may be higher than your numbers suggest (though your numbers are certainly bad enough, and I could be wrong). And the homeless seem to make up three groups: those in shelters, those on the street, and those who are couch-surfing with friends. They do censuses here periodically, but I can't remember off the top of my head what the proportion of each is. I suspect it varies from place to place and time to time.

It used to be that welfare was supposed to be enough to keep us off the street and out of sight (but no more), but it's been a while since rates were even high enough for that.

Sigh. Big big issue.

Posted by Anemone Cerridwen on 07/18/2009 @ 07:17PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- 1 person likes this comment. Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Anemone
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
Kristina - Thanks for covering this topic! I'm impressed!

In my state, there is a growing number of special needs families (usually single moms with kids on the spectrum) who cannot get help from any of the existing homeless prevention programs (even "faith based" ones). These families either are unable to retain full-time employment (their children's needs prevent them from securing full-time positions or they cannot retain it when they do) or meet the minimum income requirements of the programs.

It's hard enough "living with autism" - it's abhorrent that these families have to be homeless too! With more attention and education about this topic, maybe more "average people" will demand "change".

Posted by Jody Mack on 07/22/2009 @ 01:48PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Jody
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply

Add a Comment

For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

Comment

Check Spelling

Email me when there are new posts to this thread
Comment Policy

Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.

Author

Kristina is a Classics professor in Jersey City, New Jersey, a blogger (formerly at AutismVox), a translator (of Virgil), and an advocate every day for her son, Charlie.