BEYOND A HOUSING CRISIS: “I Never Thought…”

As we continue to learn more about the housing crisis for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities I gratefully took the opportunity to interview Jacquie Dillard-Foss, Chief Executive Office of Strategies to Empower People.  S.T.E.P. provides a wide range of support se

rvices to adults with developmental disabilities and is dedicated to Person Centered Planning and individualized programs based on each person’s unique needs.  They currently serve 180 individuals in their supported living program and 100 individuals in their independent living program. Jacquie says they would love to serve more people but because housing is basically non-existent they have to place people on a waiting list.  Among the many services S.T.E.P. provides they help everyone in the SLS and ILS programs fine and secure housing.

Approximately 30 of the people S.T.E.P. serves have a housing choice voucher; the other 150 don’t have affordable housing options and have to find housing based on the number of room-mates (usually 1 or 2, sometimes 3) they can find. This becomes even more difficult as accessibility issues, neighborhood safety and discrimination are significant barriers to finding housing within the very limited inventory.  Jacquie says when they do find a possible housing option then they have to work on convincing the landlord (property manager) that renting or leasing to her clients is not a risk just because they don’t have 3 months worth of rent in the bank, or that 3 people on the lease is not a liability.

One of the things they struggle with the most is finding safe affordable housing. If it is even close to being affordable it is most likely not a safe neighborhood. Unfortunately, some of the clients at S.T.E.P. have no other options but to live in some really rough areas, single residence occupancy (SRO) housing or motels that accept housing choice vouchers (or as Jacquie refers to them – the “no tell motel”).  When we think about the high rate of victimization of people with IDD we can’t overlook that fact that living in these areas can put them at even greater risk, thus it becomes the reality of weighing safety versus housing.

In their supported living program 80 of the clients have physical disabilities that require accessibility accommodations such as ramps, roll-in showers, safety bars in the bathroom, wide hallways or other modifications. Yet, a significant number of the apartments or houses do not meet the accessibility needs of the people who live in them.  Jacquie says there are so many times she says “I NEVER THOUGHT…. I never thought the roll-in shower I had put in our administrative office would end up being the accessibility housing accommodation for several of my clients because they don’t have accessible showers in their own home.”  On any given week 8 -10 of S.T.E.P.’s clients schedule time – use the limited resources they have such as para-transit rides and staff hours – to get to and from the S.T.E.P office to use the roll-in shower. Thank goodness they have the S.T.E.P. shower but what happens, given the mobility and accessibility issues, if they have an accident at home and need to get cleaned up? Sadly, it is not uncommon that they have to get help getting cleaned up to the best of their ability and wait until they can schedule rides and staff to get to S.T.E.P. to clean up.

There is a constant need for housing and it doesn’t help that a recent apartment complex sale resulted in 15 of the clients S.T.E.P. serves basically being evicted. They were given a 60 day notice and the rent was raised to an amount that they could no longer afford (which we know is a relative term). Another complex gave 8 clients notice because they are remodeling and raising the rent, again to an unaffordable rate.  A 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom duplex in the Arden-Arcade area which rented for $1,600 month also sold and the clients that lived there were evicted.  Jacquie says housing in Placer County just doesn’t exist for her clients and in Sacramento County the vacancy rate is 1.5 % so the competition coupled with the discriminations her clients face makes finding housing all but impossible. Even further out in Yuba County it took 4 months to find housing for one of her clients. She says her clients experience discrimination but it can be very difficult to prove. There are evictions for “questionable cause” like too many cars, which in the specific case being described were staff and the client didn’t even have car so they were not using more space than any other tenant.

As we neared the end of the interview Jacquie gave me a few more of the “I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD:”

• Be okay with 3 hots and a cot in a board and care because people should have decent housing of their choice

• Have to make these kind of compromises and weigh point for point the pros and cons of housing like – it is close to transportation and stores but it is a really sketchy neighborhood

• Compromise on the philosophical belief of 25% integration but if I knew I could get 30 safe and affordable apartments in a 50 unit complex and my clients could have a key to their own apartment, I would do it.

Perhaps the hardest hitting statement Jacquie made was “It’s unfortunate but if you are a person with IDD and your family doesn’t have money to help you – you are compromised!”  We talk about person-centered and we talk about living options and people with IDD having decision-making power in their lives but the people who really have power over the clients in SLS and ILS are the property owners and property managers because they are the ones with housing.  Though, she had several thoughts on how to deal with this horrific housing crisis Jacquie’s greatest wish is that there could somehow be a way we could help people with IDD buy their own homes. If her clients could own their own homes they would not be subject to housing discrimination, they would be able to live where they want and with whom they want and they would not be vulnerable to evictions.

THANK YOU so much to Jacquie for taking the time to let me interview her. She was very generous with her time and as I have always known she is an AMAZING ADVOCATE! To learn more about S.T.E.P. and their tireless efforts to advocate for the clients they serve visit: http://stepagency.com/what/