Housing assistance programs in the United States are falling far short of meeting a growing demand for aid in the years following the recession. My colleague Kriston Cappspreviously covered a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that found that federal rental assistance for families with children is at its lowest point in a decade, even as the number of very low-income families with children has increased by 53 percent in the same time frame.
Rental assistance, broadly, takes on two different forms: families either rent a below-market-rate property reserved for low-income tenants (project-based assistance), or receive a voucher to use for a particular unit within a designated cost bracket (tenant-based assistance).
A new report from the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) documents the same slide in rental assistance for families with children, but also points to two groups who have seen an increase in rental assistance since 2005: seniors and people with disabilities. The group at the intersection of those two demographics is likely driving the increase, says Keely Stater, the research and industry intelligence manager for PAHRC. Seniors and people with disabilities share many of the same non-housing needs; access to healthcare is perhaps the most crucial. The PAHRC report suggests that subsidized housing could be more effectively tailored to serve as the basis for such necessary services to meet both groups’ needs.
[For more of this story, written by Eillie Anzilotti, go to http://www.citylab.com/housing...able-housing/492092/]
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