August 9, 2004 Affordable, Accessible, Integrated Housing: Putting the Puzzle Together When the Pieces Don't Fit: Part I Presenter: Steve Gold Sponsored by: ILRU and NCIL OPERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome to the IL Net Affordable Accessible Housing Conference Call. Today's host will be MR. Ted Fuchs. During the discussion all participants will be muted. If you have a question, you may press 01 on your telephone keypad. You will be able to ask your question in the order in which it was received. Now without further delay, I will turn your call over to MR. Fuchs. MR. FUCHS: Good afternoon, I'm Tim Fuchs with IL Net. We're very glad you could join us today for Affordable, Accessible, Integrated Housing. As I'm sure you know, this conference is brought to you by the IL Net, a collaborative project of ILRU and NCIL, the National Council on Independent Living. If you're not familiar with the IL Net, it's a national training and technical assistance project serving to strengthen the independent living movement by supporting centers for independent living, statewide independent living councils. IL Net offers workshops, teleconferences, technical assistance, online workshops, training materials and other resources on operating CILs and SILCs. Our trainer for today and part two on Wednesday is Steve Gold. Today we have 33 sites representing 19 states and approximately 187 participants. We also have over 60 participants joining us by Web cast. I would like to thank our site coordinators across the country for your participation and interest and for preparations for your site participants. We are taping this call and you will receive a copy of that tape as part of your registration, so if you don't want to take notes, you will be able to refer to the tape. Please keep in mind that your feedback on this call is very important to us because it helps us better our future training. So If you would take a moment right now to pull out your copy of the evaluation form, including your participant's manual, it will remind you to fill it out at the end of the call. There are actually two evaluation forms, one entitled Teleconference Evaluation Form, which is the one we would like you to send back to the NCIL Office, and the other one entitled Site Coordinator Evaluation Form, which your site coordinator should have given you. The latter form goes to your site coordinator at your location to assist them in knowing how they are doing in meeting your needs on site. Please do not send it to the NICL office. I want to thank the site coordinators for making copies of the manuals for all participants. You will find the agenda for part one, today's call, on page II in your participant's manual, if you want to turn to that page now. And, site coordinators, just a reminder to you, you will need to point out corresponding page numbers in Braille and large print to your participants. I would like to introduce our speaker, Steve Gold, an attorney who specializes in civil rights and represents only persons with disabilities. And without further ado, I'm going to turn this training over to Steve. STEVE GOLD: Thank you very much. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon and, hopefully, we can make it interesting enough for you to come back on Wednesday. This is entitled Affordable, Accessible, Integrated Housing with the subtitle Putting the Puzzle Together When the Pieces Don't Fit. And that's only partially being humorous. When the housing program in this country, something like 30 or 40 years old was evolving, actually 50 years old at this time, people with disabilities were not on the horizon. So what we have in 2004 is a whole series of historical housing programs that when Congress and other places passed them were not intended -- people with disabilities and accessibility and universal access, et cetera, none of those things were on the agenda. So what we are trying to do -- and some of you might have heard me say this before, but it is the best metaphor -- was this is putting like a little kid, a two year old kid has a set of -- a tool thing, and they try to put the triangles in the triangle hole and the circles in the circle hole and the rectangle in the rectangle hole. Well, we are trying to put the triangle in the circle hole because the triangle -- there is no other hole for it. What we have been doing the last few years is pushing disabilities, the last five to ten years, pushing disability, pushing questions of access and affordability into a structure that never had been intended. We have made a lot of progress of doing this and actually, you know, some of the places have begun to turn around. If some of you are really frustrated and are confused by a whole slew of names that don't sound they are really incomprehensible terms, it is true. These things have evolved over many, many years and sort of one on top of the other and many of these programs don't even get current funding, but there are still a lot of housing for them. What we are going to try to do today and Wednesday is try -- I emphasize that because this is an entire overview -- and I told NCIL folks when they asked me would I do it, in some states I have spent a day or two, full days, 12, 14 hours, doing exactly what we are going to try to do in three hours, one and a half hours today and one and a half hours on Wednesday. So please bear with us. We are going to have three today 15 minutes breaks for questions. Tomorrow's -- Wednesday is going to be the day that we really, really break down a number of the specific programs. Today is going to be pretty much an overview of what is going on. Okay. With that in mind, we have broken this all down by minutes so for the next little bit; we're going to talk about an overview of the Fair Housing Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. These are the two federal statutes that for people with disabilities we focus on. Let me also say that -- backtrack a tiny bit, affordable, accessible, integrated housing is what we are really looking at. Affordable means people who are basically low income, SSI, a little bit above that. Accessible means you can get in there with a wheelchair or walker or scooter. And integrated means the people with disabilities are integrated and living with people without disabilities, and people without disabilities are living next door and in the same apartments, houses as people with disabilities. Those are the three goals that we have sort of laid out in the last ten years that we have been trying to push. Now how does the Federal Fair Housing Act, enacted in 1988, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act -- actually enacted in 1973, but the federal regulations applying to housing did not come about until 1988, 15 years after congress passed the act, required several lawsuits to force HUD to promulgate regulations regarding housing. To give you -- should give you a little signal about their enthusiasm and willingness to make disability an issue. There is overlap between 504 and the Fair Housing Act, no question, but there are also some big differences. And I think it is really, really important for you as advocates to understand that there are big differences. The first thing is in terms of section -- let's do 504 first. 504 applies to any recipient of federal financial assistance. So you have got to basically follow the money. When you are looking at housing and you are driving around or rolling around or walking around and you see housing that is going up or being renovated, et cetera, the first thing you have to find out is what is the funding behind it? Who is behind the funding because once you know of the money, you will know under which of these statutes they may go -- they may be under both, but clearly 504 applies only if there is federal financial assistance involved in the program. And that's really critical because 504 triggers certain duties that the Federal Fair Housing act doesn't. For example, when you are talking about making a -- right now let's assume for the moment, the housing we're talking about under the Fair Housing will be one hundred percent nonfederal money so you have got two different clear programs. The reason I say it that way for this example is that some federally financed housing, also the Federal Fair Housing Act applies, and vice versa, but at this point, let's make an accommodation. If you were in a federally financed unit and you needed some reasonable accommodation, reasonable modification physically, well, the recipient of that federal money, they have got to fund it. Under the Federal Fair Housing Act, the owner of the building has to permit the modifications to be done, but the person living in there has to fund it. So it is really important to know which of them are -- which act you are under. Second, the covered units are slightly different to very different. For an example, under the federal fair housing act, the covered units -- it is a technical term -- is covered multifamily dwellings are basically two. They have to have buildings consisting of four or more units in the building. And if the building has one or more elevators, or if the building has four or more units with no elevators, then the ground floor units are covered by the Federal Fair Housing Act. Now the reason that that is important is that I have gotten an enormous number of phone calls about townhouses and single-family units, and they want to know why the Federal Fair Housing Act might not cover that. And the reason is because the Federal Fair Housing Act covers only those units the way I just described them. Now that is different than 504. Section 504 applies to something called multifamily housing projects. They define that to mean an -- and a project doesn't mean like the projects we thought about ten or 12 years ago from terms of public housing. A project is what the applicant applying to HUD for money defines as the units that they will cover. There have to be five or more dwellings in the application for federal financial assistance or using federal financial assistance, which means the following: If they are building more than five townhouses with federal money and they have, in fact, applied in the same piece of document that is a project application, they would be covered under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. They may not be covered under -- they will not be covered under the Federal Fair Housing Act. So you have got to know which units -- you have to know the two different statutes by which units are covered. The other thing that is important that we just talked about, covered multifamily units are those either on the ground floor, if there is no elevator or -- in a building with four, or if there is an elevator, units within that building on the higher floors. That doesn't tell you how many of them have to be made accessible. Whereas under Section 504, there is a minimum number, a percentage of the dwelling units that have to be made accessible for both new construction and rehabilitation. And that's specifically -- we call it the five percent two percent rule. Five percent two percent means as follows: If you are doing new construction and/or if you are substantially rehabilitating -- and substantially rehabilitating really means you are doing an awful lot. I'm not going to get into the technical definitions, but they are there. Five percent of those units must be fully accessible in both new construction and substantial rehab. That doesn't matter whether they are connected. For example, many places have things called scattered site. As long as there are more than five scatter sites in the same project, five percent must be accessible. One of the things I recently sent out in an information bulletin, I got a few phone calls, you guys may want to think about. When this was done, the regulations for 504 in 1988, we were talking about a relatively different kind of level of consciousness about disability. The 2002 census basically did a very intensive disability survey and determined that approximately 10 or 11, almost 12 percent of the people really have needs for an accessible unit. And an accessible for just the shorthand means someone in a wheelchair, walker, scooter, et cetera, et cetera, can get in and use everything there is to use. I'm not going to go into the difference between the Federal Fair Housing Act standards for accessibility and the 504 standards for accessibility. There are some differences, but they are fairly minor once you get there. Both acts require things called "reasonable accommodation." Even though today we are talking primarily about making physical accessibility, many, many, many people with mental illness and other needs have a need for reasonable accommodation and modifications in both the housing policies to get in, as well as the accommodations within there. And both statutes, both statutes, trigger that duty for reasonable accommodation. The other thing that is very important. Even though I keep using the five percent rule. That is shorthand. It is five percent for people with mobility disabilities, one percent for people with visual disabilities and one percent for people with hearing disabilities. So it is really five and two. For shortness of breath, et cetera, I'm going to keep referring to it as the five percent rule, but you guys have to understand I mean the five-two. Even though the regulations were pretty hotly fought over to get implemented in 1988, it has not really been until the last six or seven years, if you go all over the country, to determine whether recipients of federal financial assistance have, in fact, been implementing the Section 504 duties as it relates to new construction. I mean, in terms of accessibility for new construction and rehabilitation. Even though clearly any of the houses, any of the units built since, say, rule of thumb for 504, we are talking 1990, and for the Federal Fair Housing Act, we are talking approximately 1991 for first occupancy. Any of them built after those dates had to be made accessible for folks, which means if you can find out when these were built, if my perception is right, and I have spoken to a number of you guys all over the country, that when there was lots of new building going up between 1992 and 1995, those places should be accessible, and they are not. The other thing that is very, very important in terms of other duties under 504 which gives you enormous handles to pressure your housing officials, your recipients of the federal financial assistance is not only do the units have to be accessible, but they have to be distributed. This is very, very, very important. Let's assume you have 100 units in a project and, you know, 25 of them are single units, 25 are two bedroom units 25 are three bedroom units and 25 are four bedroom units. And five percent of the units in that project would be five. Many, many, many places will put all five of them in the single bedroom units. Well, that's not distributing the accessible units pursuant --in compliance with Section 504. Section 504 requires that units be distributed so that people with disabilities have a choice of living arrangements, which is pretty comparable to nondisabled, which means when you find out where your recipients have, in fact, put the accessible units, you will find out that very, very often they concentrated them. That's a violation of segregating them in single units. Second duty is -- another duty under Section 504 is that one of the things that we discovered -- we're discovering is that very, very often, even when they built an accessible unit, they didn't ensure that a person who needed it with a physical mobility disability or hearing or visual for shorthand, in fact, were offered those units. And that's a violation of 504. It is absolutely unequivocally clear under the Section 504 regulations -- and those of you who want to read them, you know, it's a 24 Code of Federal Regulations Part Eight. If you go under Code of Federal Regulations in Google and then Volume 24 and Part Eight, you can get your own copy. What it meant in terms of occupancy of accessible units is that even after they built them, they were supposed to offer them to people who needed them, even if it meant jumping over nondisabled people. So that the first person on any waiting list who needed that specific accessibility features should have been offered to them. It also means -- very, very important guys -- let's assume that 1996 or something they built a unit and by miracles of miracles, they actually put a person with a disability who needed it in that unit. In 2004 the person moves who has been in that unit. That unit with accessible features is supposed to be offered first to someone who has a disability who is living in a non- accessible unit and, second, to anyone on the waiting list who has the need for those specific features. Now that is another difference between the fair housing act. Many, many of the Fair Housing Act -- housing that is applicable to it don't – do not receive any federal money so that they -- so the 504 rights don't trigger. But there are many houses that receive both private money and federal money. As long as that unit receives some federal money, then 504 is applicable. And then these requirements are triggered in. Tomorrow when we do stuff on -- a little bit on Section Eight vouchers, I will tell you another Section 504 requirement that is triggered for people who have housing vouchers. But what other kinds of major, major issues? One thing that section – the reason -- the fair housing act and section 504 is for a number of years we were all sort of stuck in quicksand in terms of figuring out how you can make reasonable accommodations go beyond just disability, i.e., go to income. And there have been some cases now recently. Last year in the Ninth Circuit that people with disabilities who were on fixed incomes who may not be able on their own, for example, to put deposits down, or to put, you know, first month's rent or first and last months' rent or cosign maybe because of some bad credit rating can get someone else to cosign for them. And the Ninth Circuit held last year that since they have got to make a reasonable accommodation, it is not just limited to disability issues. And that's something we haven't explored, but my hope is in the future, we are going to get to that a lot, lot more. I'm now a few minutes over what we wanted to do on the difference between 504 and the Fair Housing Act. I would like now to stop and answer some questions. What we're going to try to do rather than wait to the end and do a lot of questions and everyone get totally lost and confused, I like to try to clarify things subject by subject. If you want to open it up for questions now for the next five minutes or so, please. MR. FUCHS: Thanks, Steve. If I could mention two things very quickly. I have gotten a comment from our captioner – MR. STEVE GOLD: Am I talking too quickly? MR. FUCHS: Steve and I both talk too quickly. If we can just bring the speed down a little bit, so that people watching the Web cast can get every word. I think we know how important that is. Also, I want to mention that the second part is on Wednesday, the eleventh, that is part two at 3:00 Eastern time. At this moment, I would like to ask Marilyn if we have any questions from teleconference participants. OPERATOR: If you have a question at this time, press 01 on your telephone keypad. Once again, if you have questions please press 01 on your telephone keypad. There is one question in queue at this time. That question comes from the CMILC. Go ahead with your question, please. CALLER: Hi, this is Margi at the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, California. MR. STEVE GOLD: Hi. CALLER: Hi. I'm wondering how do you find out where the federal financing -- if that exists, do you just ask the owner or is there some easier way that you can find out how the building is funded? MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. There is no easy way. Let's start with that. First there is -- I hope most of you know about my web page under housing. We tried to make it -- since I have last done this -- a little bit more accessible for people. There is a section of housing. A number of these I tried to give the HUD web page address so that tomorrow, for example, when we talk about multifamily subsidized housing, you can go to your city by zip code and find out multifamily housing. You can do the same thing on low-income housing tax credits. You can do the same thing on the home program. There is a whole bunch you cannot. For example, public housing. There is no federally -- that I ever found. Every time you get on it, you find something new. Clearly one way and the easiest way to get the HUD web page address for a specific program is to go to my web page. I tried to give it to you. There are three HUD Web sites. One is called HUDClips. One is called HUDUser.org, and one is called HUD.Gov. Don't ask me why they did it this way. They are different and you have got to sort of play around. The specific program can be on one or the other, and the addresses can be on one or the other. There are other ways of finding them though. Okay. Very important. Most of what -- a little bit later when we talk about consolidated plan and we talk about the difference between HUD and your state -- most federal money, not all, most, comes either through a state agent, state housing agency, and most of those, by the way, have their own Web sites and have addresses and/or your city housing. They are called all different names. I'm not talking public housing. The City of Berkeley Housing Consortium or Berkeley Housing Planning. You have to figure out who has to do the consolidated plan. They are normally the channel through which most of the federal money comes. Now there is a third way that is much more time-consuming, but -- and that's to go to your local office of deeds. If you have a housing street address, look up the deed. Because very, very frequently a number of these federal programs will identify funding in the deed. Because they will say in the deed that they have to comply with all, you know, civil rights statutes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah in the deed restriction. You will find that that way, as well. The fourth way, which is obviously the simplest, but the most unreliable, is to just ask the owner of the building. But there are different ways of doing it. This is like a puzzle, gang. You know, a puzzle that we're making. And, you know, if someone finds a better way of doing it, let me know and I will get it out to everybody. This is something I have been doing I don't know how many years, but there are different ways of finding it out. You can find it out. This is not an unknown secret, but there is no simple way. CALLER: Okay. Thanks so much for all your good information. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. Next question? OPERATOR: There are two questions in queue at this time. The next question comes from Paralyzed Vets of America. MR. STEVE GOLD: Oh, great. CALLER: This is Kevin with OPVA. The Oregon Disabilities Commission is here also. Anyway, under adaptable units, that pretty much means everything but the grab bars. That is my understanding anyway. MR. STEVE GOLD: Well, adaptable unit under the Fair Housing Act? CALLER: Right. MR. STEVE GOLD: Adaptable units under the Fair Housing Act means at least, at least, that there be an accessible entrance on an accessible route; that any common use areas be accessible; that at least the doorways be wide enough. Now adaptable is different than accessible. Okay? This is really important. Adaptable really means that behind the walls the two by four joints are put in such a place that if you needed a grab bar later on, they will know exactly where to put it because there is going to be a two by four behind that wall into which the grab bar will go. CALLER: How does that work with the clear floor space, particularly in a bath? MR. STEVE GOLD: All that stuff -- the clear floor space, yes. But in terms of doing physical modifications, adaptability means, as a rule of thumb, not finitely, but as a rule of thumb, means that if you were in a unit in one of the Fair Housing Act that were covered because of the elevator, for example, and you needed to make your place accessible, it would have to have been built adaptable so that you could do it. CALLER: Right. Okay. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. Next question? OPERATOR: The next question comes from Center for Community Access. CALLER: Thank you. Maureen Taylor here. I'm sitting here with my colleagues. I have a three-part question. The first one -- they are quick -- I want to know is there a mandate for a specific percentage of all new housing or reconstructed or rehabbed housing that is supposed to be designated for the disabled community. That is question number one? MR. STEVE GOLD: Yes. If it is federally financed, a minimum, a floor of five percent. And that's why I raised before, you can get more than that if you can organize politically because with the 2002 census, that is just the floor. That was something developed in 1988. We are 16 years beyond, and I think you guys can tell them they should do an updated assessment plan, and you should be part of it because you need more than five percent. CALLER: Question number two: How can an organization that specifically works with disabled population secure direct funding streams so it can be used for low income housing, and we don't have to go through a third party. MR. STEVE GOLD: That's a great question. It depends. Those of you in the independent living centers, there was -- and I don't remember whether there still is -- someone can help me -- a prohibition on doing housing development yourself. The way that can be dealt with is you can set up another corporation and then apply to your city for -- tomorrow when we talk about community development block grants, you can become a developer. When we talk about home money, you can become a developer. When we talk about low-income housing tax credits, you can become a recipient. CALLER: Okay. I'm listening and I'm recording this. My last question is: Is there a model that you are aware of direct housing takeovers? For example -- CALLER: Yes. In Denver, Atlantis has their own housing. In Denver, the program Atlantis has, I think in my recollection -- I may be wrong -- set up a separate corporation, and they have their own housing and it is gorgeous. CALLER: Okay. No. No. That is not what I mean. I'm trying to give you a scenario so that you can speak specifically to my question. MR. STEVE GOLD: I apologize. CALLER: No. No. Not at all. The Kensington Welfare Rights Organization has for years just taken over housing. If they find housing, that is public housing, and it is vacant and available, they just simply move low-income people into it. MR. STEVE GOLD: Yes. CALLER: And I'm wondering if there is such a model where disabled organizations can find housing and just move in MR. STEVE GOLD: I have not heard of that at all. I'm very aware of Kensington Welfare Rights Union and what they have done. I have never heard of a comparable in terms of disabilities. One of the reasons is we don't have very many accessible housing units anywhere. Okay. I'm going to move on. There is no -- I am not aware of any model where that has been done. Sorry. I would like to go back now to the outline. Okay. MR. FUCHS: I have two more questions from Web cast participants, Steve. MR. STEVE GOLD: Go ahead. But don't forget, I have got a lot to do in the next 56 minutes. MR. FUCHS: Understood. I have to get these out though. I have a question in regards to the FHA design and construction requirements. A person says to you -- say that a building is built after 1990 -- 1991. Is it based on first occupancy after March 13th, '91? MR. STEVE GOLD: '91, yes. I thought I corrected myself in saying '91. That is different from Section 504, which is triggered after -- approximately 1990. MR. FUCHS: Okay. Thank you. The other question is a quick question in with regard to disbursed unit types. A person asks: Does this mean there should be a minimum of one of each type that must be accessible? MR. STEVE GOLD: Well, I can't answer that. First of all, we are only talking Section 504. When the person asked the question about disbursed. What she or he means is units that are not attached. There are clearly not four units in a building that trigger the Fair Housing Act. It could be scattered site or two units side by side separated by a wall, an alleyway, et cetera. The accessibility distribution, when you look at the project and you count the number of units and you count the bedroom size and how they are done, the choice for the person with a disability should be comparable to the nondisabled. That is what the rights and requirements are. Otherwise, they are being discriminated against. Okay? MR. FUCHS: Thanks, Steve. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. The next part was to deal with HUD and rural housing. When we were talking on Thursday to prepare, I said I also want to add some state stuff because this is a funny kind of an animal in terms of how this money goes and who is responsible for what and who will do what, et cetera, et cetera. And this is going to be disappointing to a lot of people. Okay? Because there is very, very, very little enforcement. Even when there is blatant violations by different government entities. Now, I'm not talking about your individual state fair housing agencies, which may be better than the federal agencies in terms of actual enforcements, but HUD is the big domino. Right? HUD with its big, big, big budget over the years has been the entity through which most, not all, most of the federal money passes. And the reason I say it that way is because lots of money passes into rural areas through the Department of Ag and low income housing tax credits pass through the Internal Revenue Service. Not HUD. But let's start dealing with HUD. HUD is the entity. I'm going to first deal with federal HUD because then there are regional HUD offices that you guys have to know -- you must get to meet your regional HUD officials. HUD is bifurcated by program both nationally and locally, meaning public housing people are one unit in HUD that may never talk to -- I'm sure they talk to -- but are not dependent on or have to do with community development block grants or HOME programs or other programs we are going to talk about. So that the public housing unit has to be dealt with. There are people regionally who do nothing but public housing. There are Section Eight people that are also sometimes -- I think it is under -- I know on the national level it is separate from, but it may be part of the local -- I'm blanking -- part of the public housing people. Because it is your public housing authority that administers both what we call "traditional public housing," the bricks and mortars, the units that you see when you drive by, and the Section Eight Housing Voucher Program, which is a rental subsidy program. Then there is the multifamily subsidized housing unit, which is part of HUD, which in the old days -- in the old days, I'm talking the 60's, the 70's, the 80's. They were the ones that used to talk about 221D3, mortgage support, all these terms that confused everybody for -- who was not working full time in the housing world. Many of those fall within what is called multifamily subsidized housing, which is a different body and a different program than public housing. Then there is something called Community Development Block Grants, which also does housing. And your materials, a lot of these -- and we're going to go over these in much, much, much greater detail on Wednesday, but I want you to see how they all fit into the HUD program. Then there is a program called the Home Program, H-O-M-E, Home Partnership that does both new construction – CDBG, Community Development Block Grants, does a whole bunch of stuff, and we will talk tomorrow about how the disability community can really get some good stuff out of this CDBG. The same thing with the HOME Program. We can get some good stuff out of these others too. In terms of knowing who funds it, it is HUD. Therefore, you have to become familiar on your regional basis. There are lots of regional offices. And who in those HUD regional offices are the people responsible for those programs? Because even though when I call up frequently and ask for addresses, the woman from Berkeley -- I don't have any doubt if you guys were on really good terms with your regional HUD people, they -- I cannot really believe they do not -- they may not make it available to us, but I cannot believe they don't know where the money has gone over the years by street address. So if you get to know someone, you may be able to shortcut it that way. Okay. So now we talk about HUD both federally -- you are not going to have that much interaction federally with them. These guys set policy. When we talk about fair share and voucher programs and applying to them, that is done at a national level. When we talk about monitoring and filing civil rights violations, et cetera, that is done at a local level, but I have got to tell you guys, it is worth filing fair Housing violations, but -- with your HUD. And sometimes on an individual basis they may come out and do something. They have been more remiss than -- and they should be very embarrassed by their remission in this area. They have been much better when it comes to race and gender discrimination than disability discrimination. Okay. Now, you also have on the federal level the -- for rural Americans, there are a number of programs that -- if you look in the materials, particularly from pages 31 through 36 or 37, you will see a number of descriptions of rural housing programs. Even though these are administered by the United States Department of Ag, many of them, many of them, you have to go to your local -- to your local people for basically county supervisors to get these programs. There are specific moneys to make homes accessible. It is called the Home Repair Loan & Grant Program, otherwise known as Section 504. 21,000 families got these in 2004. There are other programs, as well. There is a single family direct loan program where -- and there is a rental assistance program, which is very much like the project-based vouchers. So if you are in a county that you know -- you have a county agent. You are going to have to get to them and find out which programs they have them, what dates are due. Because most of those programs -- and I don't pretend to an expert on them -- but in most of those programs the individual applies directly to the county agent for them. Once you get beyond the federal and the rural U.S. Department of Ag people, the real confusion for most of us comes on a local level. That is, where does this federal money go? How does it go there? And it goes different ways. For example, all of the low income housing tax credits -- all -- are administered by your state housing finance agency. Most of them are called by whatever the name of your state, housing finance agency. Every year they have one or two allocation plans and every year they distribute them. Well, a number of housing finance agencies because of pressure from the disability community in the last few years have begun to condition receipt of these tax credits on compliance with the five percent rule. So that if a developer wants to get a tax credit, they have to agree that a certain percentage will be in compliance with the five percent rule. To even make it stronger, you want to build in 504 directly with that so that the units have to be actually lived in by people with disabilities. Okay. The community development block grant money is primarily 60, 70 percent -- I don't remember offhand -- is administered by something called entitlement programs, meaning if you live in the larger cities -- and I don't know. I cannot remember the number of people -- I think it is 150,000 -- I may be wrong. Your local city every year as an entitlement receives money under the Community Development Block Grant, and they can allocate it for either new construction. You can do it for roads. You can do it for the Philadelphia Eagles football stadium. I'm being a little facetious, but there are ways around it. Those are individual political decisions. You can do home mod money for accessibility for people through loans and grants. That's done locally. The other 40 percent is done through many of your state agencies that then allocates the CDBG for areas in your state that are not entitlement. They also have discretion about how to do it. Your HOME money is also done through the local housing -- this is -- I just discovered recently many places combine public housing and nonpublic housing, but there are other places with two separate government entities, one that does public housing/Section 8, and one that does the other kind of housing, whether it be CDBG, whether it be HOME, whether it be multifamily subsidized housing. And they do that and they are two separate -- they can be separate. They can be the same. The state and the city are just separate, separate programs, separate entities in terms of how they function. The thing that is really important -- and I know it is confusing -- but you have to figure out who the players are both on your local level and your state level. And that means you are going to have to do a diagram. And you are going to have to do a diagram, those of you who recently saw the movie, The Battle of Algiers, that was re-issued. They did this diagram, and you are going to do a diagram. You are going to have on this diagram both federal agencies, state agencies, city agencies, interconnected by programs. So you are going to know if you are talking about Community Development Block Grant and you're an entitlement city what agency is responsible locally and what agency federally is responsible, i.e., HUD. If you are talking about low income housing tax credits and the woman from Berkeley who asked that question, it is really really important to get the street addresses of these units because it is very hard to find out and your state would have that. It is really important to know that. On Wednesday you are going to hear in much more detail why. You are going to do a diagram. You are going to keep a flow chart as to what agency is responsible for what. Part of that is going to be whether this agency is appointed, and if so, appointed by whom. And/or elected. And if elected, you know, when. The reason that is important is because if your state housing finance agency is appointed by your governor, right, you want to know from your governor why there isn't anyone on there representing the disability community. If your public housing authority is appointed, and you find out it is appointed by both the state or/and your local elected mayor or managing director, whatever, you want to know the political pressure points. So that if your public housing director is not responsible, to whom is she or he accountable? You have to figure out where the pressure point is. Housing is another political animal. All right. All housing decisions can be influenced if you guys are organized. Housing equals political organization. Don't forget it. Really critical. And my one exception is I don't have enough experience with the rural housing to know if the same thing applies. But other than the rural housing, I have had a lot of experience. And that is correct. Okay. Let's now open up for some more questions, please. MR. FUCHS: Carolyn, do we have any questions from teleconference participants? MR. STEVE GOLD: And obviously if there are questions we didn't get the first time, we can double them up. OPERATOR: If you have a question at this time, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. There are two questions in the queue at this time. This question comes from Tri County Patriots for Illinois. MR. STEVE GOLD: Hi, guys. OPERATOR: Go ahead with your question, please. CALLER: We had a situation recently where the consumer requested an accommodation through HUD and was told that they had made the apartment accessible two years ago and they no longer had the funding to make it accessible. That they considered it accessible. MR. STEVE GOLD: I think I understand the question. First of all, we're talking about a building that receives federal financial assistance, correct? CALLER: Yes. MR. STEVE GOLD: You said HUD. You didn't really mean HUD made it accessible, did you? It was probably the recipient of the federal financial money. HUD is the distributor of that money. Okay. The housing authority must comply with something called the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards. Short for that, UFAS. I'm not going to get into the specific requirements, but if -- when you look up UFAS on Google, you will get it. It is under the code of federal regulations. You will see what the specific requirements are to make it accessible. One of the great jokes going around the country -- unfortunately shows you either how tired I am or how cynical I'm becoming. One of the great jokes is the housing authority thinks because they made a ramp, they therefore made a house accessible. CALLER: They think because they put grab bars in this apartment, that it is accessible. MR. STEVE GOLD: That is not uniform accessibility standards. If this is a unit that is either newly constructed or substantially rehabbed, they have to make it fully accessible, fully. That means light switches at a certain height, receptacles at a certain height, counters at a certain height, refrigerators at a certain height, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. UFAS is very, very, very detailed. Now let's assume for a moment that this is a public housing unit that has not been newly constructed since 1990 approximately or rehabbed since 1990. Okay? Let's just make that assumption for people's understanding. Then they have to do a reasonable accommodation to meet the needs of the individual. Let's assume two years ago they put grab bars in the bathtub. But let's assume for a moment that this person's disability has gotten worse in two years or exacerbated in two years and they can't get out of the chair easily at all to transfer to the bathtub. And they, therefore, need a roll-in shower. CALLER: That is exactly the situation we have. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. It is not sufficient to say that because we made accommodations two years ago, we don't have to do it to meet that person's needs now. Let me also tell a big secret. This doesn't cost that much, guys. All this is pre-fab. The roll-in showers are being made all over the country now pre-fab. There is already a drainage pipe hole and two pipes, one for hot water, one for cold water, behind where the bathtub is, so they can put the pre-fab roll-in shower in the same places. So it doesn't cost much. Without knowing more, yes, they have to make it accessible for that person as the person's needs change. Now, if it is a brand new unit, there is no question. But the reason I said "cynical" and "too late in the day for humor," is that in a number of lawsuits we have been involved in, when you go against the housing authorities particularly -- and I want you guys to think about more than just the public housing authorities. I want you to see about recipients of CDBG money, HOME money, et cetera. They don't know -- what they think is quote/unquote accessible is so minimal and so much under what is required under the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards that when a great person in Washington, D.C -- and we brought a lawsuit a few years ago against a D.C. housing authority, and they were supposed to have 500 and something units accessible, and they said, well, we have 250 already accessible. Well, when we brought the lawsuit it was discovered that they, in fact, had zero that complied with UFAS. Right? So just because your housing authority says that they have an accessible unit, you have got to have that handbook for UFAS. And you have to go look at that unit with a ruler, or yardstick, the measurement tools, et cetera, to see whether everything fully complies. Next question? OPERATOR: The next question comes from (inaudible) CIL -- CALLER: This is Howard calling. I have a question about accessibility. It seems like accessibility is mainly just for people in chairs. But what about accessibility for people who have visual problems? MR. STEVE GOLD: I'm sorry. I thought I made it clear. One percent -- CALLER: What does that entail as far as being accessible for one who is visually impaired? MR. STEVE GOLD: They would have audio devices so that anything -- not anything, but what would make your place accessible so that if – CALLER: What about the thermostat, the oven, the stove? MR. STEVE GOLD: I think you can get a talking thermostat. Yeah. CALLER: Do I have to buy that? MR. STEVE GOLD: No. No. No. It is not a UFAS. That would be under reasonable accommodations. I don't know offhand. First thing I would do, I would go to UFAS to see what it has in there for visual accessibility. The second thing I would go to though, as all of you know, right, that the -- there is new thing as of July , 2004, right off the printing press that is the architectural barrier accessibility guidelines that has been published and they can be gotten at www.access-board.gov. And you will see other accessibility features in there. Let's assume though the following: Let's assume that what you need is a talking thermostat, and I don't know how you would do it -- I'm embarrassed to tell you -- for an oven or something. But it doesn't strike me as that difficult, you know, whether you need it in Braille or whether you need it in some other way, or even a thermostat in Braille. CALLER: All right. I mean, something other than what we have? MR. STEVE GOLD: Yeah. Those are the minimal kinds of accessibility, reasonable accommodations. But the first thing you want to look at to give you leverage in negotiations. Remember, all housing equals politics. Politics means pressure. To do pressure, the first thing you need is knowledge and information. So that when you begin the pressure, you will talk from a position of knowledge. The first thing I would do is look up on UFAS to see whether it has anything. I would not be surprised if it didn't have much, but you'll see. I don't know. It has been at least ten years since I looked that up. And the second thing I would look up the recent ADAAG that just came out on July 23d to see whether they have it. On the assumption -- on the bad assumption that neither of them have anything -- I hope I'm wrong -- then you are still talking about reasonable accommodation. Tell your landlord -- again we are talking about 504, right, federally financed. Because if this is not under federal financing, you have a right to put those in, but you have to pay for them. Okay. That's the difference under the Federal Fair Housing Act when there is no federal financial assistance and under Section 504 when there is federal financial assistance. It is who has to pay and who has to put it in. CALLER: It's under 504. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. Then they have to pay. Next question? I only have 30 more minutes. OPERATOR: The next question comes from Oregon Paralyzed Vets of America. MR. STEVE GOLD: Wow. Two of them. Go ahead, guys. CALLER: We have a situation in Lane County here in Oregon where they are eligible to get community development block grant funding, and I have gone all the way to the top as far as the person that's in charge of our county and they will not apply for the funding even if we help them to fill out the paperwork and everything. MR. STEVE GOLD: Is this a nonentitlement area? CALLER: They are an entitled area. MR. STEVE GOLD: An entitlement area? CALLER: Yeah. MR. STEVE GOLD: Meaning they have more than 150,000 or 250,000, whatever the number is? CALLER: Yes, they do. MR. STEVE GOLD: Well, they get this money as a right. What do you mean they don't apply? CALLER: They will not accept the money. MR. STEVE GOLD: They do not accept CDBG money? CALLER: Correct. MR. STEVE GOLD: They ought to be shot and voted out of office. This is like money from heaven. This is just dropping on them. They can use it -- it is one thing if you told me that they don't want to use the money for housing. But not to accept the money borders on one of the stupidest things I have heard in a long time. CALLER: How do we get them to apply for it? MR. STEVE GOLD: Well, I don't know. I mean, is this elected? Is this a governor, a mayor, a town manager? What is it? CALLER: It's a county rural supervisor. MR. STEVE GOLD: Well, once you put the word "rural" in, it strikes me you may not be talking about an entitlement. Are you sure it is an entitlement? CALLER: They have enough population if you take out the two major cities in Lane county, to still receive funding. MR. STEVE GOLD: If they are an entitlement, I have never, ever heard of them not accepting money anywhere in the country. I think you may be wrong. I think it may be an nonentitlement area, which means that they are not applying to the state housing agency for money. Let's assume that is correct for a moment. Then you have to get -- you have got to organize people. You have to organize your entire disability community to go to them. I would go to your state people and talk to your state people about if you become a nonprofit corporation, and you need this housing, will your state housing people give you the CDBG money directly? But I would be shocked if it is an entitlement area and not accept the money. I have heard a lot of crazy things in this business, but that one I have never heard of. Because they can use it for cleaning streets, shoveling snow. They can use it for other stuff that they are doing now. That is why I can't believe -- I think it has to be a nonentitlement. Okay. Do we have any more questions or can I move on? OPERATOR: The next question comes from Access Center. Go ahead, please. CALLER: Yes. I'm from the Access Center in Oceanside, California. MR. STEVE GOLD: Hello. CALLER: I'm looking at your thing on page three -- your booklet on page three. It says reasonable accommodations. How do you use reasonable accommodations to prevent an eviction? MR. STEVE GOLD: Well, you have got to give me more. Why is the person being evicted? CALLER: This is just something for the future so I know what to do. MR. STEVE GOLD: Let me tell you something over many, many years, a lot of people may have a mental disability and what they need -- for whatever reason -- let's assume one thing, they need a smoke because of their mental -- their nervousness or whatever. Reasonable accommodation might be that they have a smoking area outside of the building as a reasonable accommodation. Another reasonable accommodation is that there are -- I have represented people with mental illnesses that at night need sound, music, television on pretty loud, which bothers neighbors. Right? Well, the reasonable accommodation could be in that case that if it's a 504 unit, that they soundproof that unit so that the person can still live there and still recognize the disability and how it affects that person. But you have got to be creative about -- one time we had someone who had a developmental disability and wanted to live in his own apartment, and the landlord was afraid that this person would turn the gas oven on and set fire to a multi unit. What we had was, in fact, a special device put on the gas oven so that he could not, without someone else being there, manipulate the turning on of the oven. That is why I said you have to tell me what the problem is. The reasonable accommodation is limited by your creativity. So if you took the example of someone that is up late at night playing loud TV or stereo and bothering all their neighbors and they are being evicted, well, the reasonable accommodation would be let's give him three more months with a soundproofing apartment and see if everyone can live civilly. That's different than the smoking thing inside. A lot of times we have enormous difficulty with chemical sensitivity issues particularly in multiunit facilities. And how do you do it in terms of humidifiers, air conditioners and other things to deal with the chemical sensitivity. Okay? CALLER: Thank you. MR. STEVE GOLD: Can we go on? OPERATOR: One further question in queue from the Center for Community Access. CALLER: Michael Paul from Detroit. MR. STEVE GOLD: Hi. CALLER: I was calling regarding the town homes you were speaking of earlier. MR. STEVE GOLD: Did my answer surprise you? CALLER: No. We are requiring that here in the city right now. But what my question was, if a small -- just a small number of the units are paid for under federal dollars, does 504 -- do you count the five percent and two percent for the whole project or just the amount that was funded federally? MR. STEVE GOLD: There have been no cases on this answer; but if you ask me my opinion, you count only those units that have been funded with federal financial assistance. Now, one of the things that is important, really, really, really important and gets back to the woman from Berkeley. Many, many, many projects get multi-sources of funding, meaning if you had 200 units -- and we see this more and more, for example, we haven't talked about Hope Six projects where the bigger cities have been getting funding. You put together 200 units, 100 of those units may be solely low income housing tax credits. Another 20 of those units or 25 could be solely public housing units. The remaining 75 might be -- 25 could be CDBG and low income housing tax credits, 25 could be CDBG and Home money. And you have got to separate and figure out what each of the units -- where they have gotten the money from and then do the five percent for the recipients of federal assistance. So if in my example you had 100 units and they got even 90 percent of their money for all of their units, for example, for CDBG, for example, for land clearance. They used all the CDBG money for land clearance or they used all the CDBG money for sewers or all the CDBG money for installing water and electricity, something, but then said, okay, 50 of them will be entirely private and all private money. The other 50 will be an accommodation of other federal money. So then your question would be what about the first 50? They did get some CDBG money. They got it for land clearance, for electricity. They got it for water. The answer is it's not clear. I am absolutely confident about the second 50 that used the money for construction. I am less clear -- though I would argue that they -- the recipients of federal financial assistance to build those for the first 50. A little harder, but I would argue that if I were you. CALLER: Thank you. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. Now, moving along, we have 22 minutes. Okay? First thing on this is the question was National Housing Distribution. It says type of HUD housing. Let me tell you how widespread the different kind of housing is. We're talking approximately, believe it or not, of all the kinds of federal housing, probably the smallest number in units is public housing. It is about 1.4 million. I may be off. I haven't looked at this in the last year, year and a half. Things have been changing a little bit, but this will give you a good range all over the country. For public housing units, you guys can go on a Web site and see by your city, you know, how many total public housing units there are under the HUD web page. Under HUD.HA profiles. I will look it up as we are talking. And determine how many housing units there are. When you get on that page, your housing authority will have an HA number on the left-hand column. If you click on that number, you are going to then see the number of Section Eight vouchers that your housing authority administers. In fact, in this country, there are more public housing vouchers than public housing units, about approximately 1.8. The fight we had this past year is, believe it or not, approximately 50 percent of the entire HUD budget, goes to subsidize, provide for Section Eight housing vouchers. I use Section Eight and housing vouchers interchangeably. All right? So from HUD's point of view, the big, big expenditure is the housing voucher, which is nothing more than a rental supplement, housing rental supplement. A person pays a certain percentage based on income and the Section Eight voucher pays the rest. Then there is something called subsidized housing. And that is approximately 1.8 million units in the country, almost the same size as -- it is getting lesser and lesser as the years go on because many of them had 20 and 30 year loans and mortgages after which they were free to do with them pretty much as they pleased, which they are. Wednesday when we talk about subsidized housing, multifamily subsidized housing, it is 1.8 million units. Then there is something called the low income housing tax credit. Approximately 1.3 million. This is also an entitlement, the same way CDBG is an entitlement, based on the number of people, based on a formula which I can never really understand. It is the number of people and the number of poor people, et cetera, per state. After you do all of that -- there is also a program called HOME, H-O-M-E, and a program called Hope Six. All the rest is private housing market. So all the rest is clearly potentially under the Fair Housing Act not under Section 504. So when we talk about -- I mean, you have got to really know the source of your income to know what it is that you're dealing with. Okay. Now, let's deal in the last bit of time with two forms, two things that have to be filled out either every year and/or every five years. It really is and/or. That is something called your consolidated plans and your public housing plans. It is really important for you guys to know what they are and what the differences are. Consolidated plans are -- if you go on to my web page, we have a whole information bulletin on consolidated plans. Those of you who may not be familiar, it is WWW.stevegoldada.com. Then you click on housing. HUD has a requirement for a consolidated plan that has to be filled out every five years and every year by the recipients of basically the CDBG money on a local level and the state on a state level. Now, the reason that this is important to know is that twice a year they have to have public hearings. And twice a year they have to go over their consolidated plan both for the next year and for how it fits into the five-year plan, which means twice a year -- housing equals political pressure -- twice a year you have an opportunity to get before them and to talk about the housing needs of people with disabilities that their consolidated plans are either not addressing whatsoever or addressing poorly. Now, the consolidated plan also has to have an analysis in it that basically talks about impediments to fair housing. And one impediment of fair housing is a lack of or a sparsity of accessible units. So that you really want to make sure that your analysis -- that whoever did your consolidated plan and the analysis in the consolidated plan talks about that. Now, one of the things that we have been able to do in different parts of the country with some degree of success, but it has taken time -- do not expect to get this the first time around. Do not expect to get this the second time around, but we will bet you some Philadelphia pretzels that if you organize adequately, by the fourth time, by the end of the second year, four public hearings on the consolidated plan- -if you have people with disabilities there testifying and you find out who is on -- who are the decision makers, who are the elected officials that have to sign off? Then you start meeting with them, not just twice a year, but go to their offices and bring people who are living on second floors and can't get up and down stairs. Bring people who are on the first floor and can't use the bathroom because they are on the second floor to meet them and to talk about how they are not using their consolidated plan money to ensure accessibility. Because once they start doing that, this is where you can get money for any kind of stuff, including a home mod program, including an insurance that any, any -- all housing money going through the city has universal housing design. It is a political decision. This is not written in any stone. It is neither -- it is not in the old testament, the new testament or the Koran. It is how the political decisions are made. If you pressure them enough and you appear before them enough and if you are in their face enough, you will get your interests taken care of. Then you are going to be able to grow on it because you are going to get people thanking them because for the first time they will be able to get out of their house and apartment and shop, et cetera, et cetera. But the consolidated plan is critical because it requires them -- there are a whole bunches of forms. You have to get the plan and download it. There is a template when you get there. It is called guidelines for preparing a consolidated plan submission for local jurisdictions. And there are forms they have to fill out, estimated costs, how many people fit whatever, in terms of disabled, elderly, special populations, homeless, public housing, et cetera, et cetera. And you have got to tell them, what are you talking about? You don't have anything down there for people with disabilities. But they have to have citizen participation twice a year. The same thing occurs on your public housing agencies. They have to have both a five-year plan and an annual plan. And in those, they are going to be deciding -- in those -- they have their public hearings. I think it is twice a year. They have to have public hearings again identifying needs and are they meeting those needs? Do not be surprised -- you guys should get, clearly should get for the last five years both your consolidated plans and your PHA annual and five year plans and look them over and see what they have talked about for people with disabilities for the last five years and see whether your interests are being adequately protected and met. If not, you guys be in their face organizing with -- and pressuring members. That is what advocacy is all about in terms of developing their plans, whether the consolidated plan or their public housing authority plan one year, five years to meet the needs of people with disabilities. It is in that you can say until we get 10 percent of all the units, 15 percent of all the units accessible, those are going to be the next units for people with disabilities. In terms of the consolidation plans, x millions of dollars are going to go for home modifications, y millions for a Section Eight program, and z millions for something else. But you have got to pressure them into recognizing that this is a problem and therefore using the money. They are not going to roll over and say, oh, my God we never knew about this before. We have been so wrong. We will make a change. It will require some pressure. Going to them. But the places that have done that have been successful. Okay. Let's do the remaining questions and answers, please. OPERATOR: If you have a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. If you have a question at this time, please 01 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from DAWN. CALLER: I have a question about the consolidated plans in the public housing plans. Are they state plans or county plans? MR. STEVE GOLD: I thought I made that clear. I'm glad you asked the question. I'm tired. The consolidated plan must be made by your State housing agency for the use of their money and programs, whether it be CDBG, whether it be anything that they get federal money for. And your consolidated plan is also done locally, a separate one. Now, many places are beginning to sort of have regional consolidated plans so that three or four counties may get together and do one plan. That is okay. If they have gotten local CDBG money--home money--they have to have a consolidated plan identifying priorities of housing needs, housing shortages, et cetera, and how the use of the federal money will meet those needs so it is done on both levels. CALLER: OK. Then the public housing, that is for the individual housing authority? MR. STEVE GOLD: For the individual housing authority and it is for both. There are bricks and mortars, meaning the actual housing and for their Section Eight program. It is for both. That is very important. So that if you want to get a different priority, for example, in Section Eight, you have to have different preferences. You have to have them change their one-year and five-year plan. You could have a section eight housing preference plan that says based on the recognition of the housing shortage and the needs of people with disabilities over the last ten years, for the next five years, we will give 50 percent of the housing vouchers for people with disabilities. But they have got to do it and want to do it because you pressured them to do it. CALLER: Do you just go to them and ask for it? MR. STEVE GOLD: You find out two things. This is political pressure, guys. They are not going to roll over and play dead. First thing you do is get a copy of their last five years' worth of this document to see what they have, in fact, said they have done for people with disabilities. And then you find out when the public hearings are. You get 15, 20, 30 people at those hearings and you say, Remember the children's book about WALDO and you try to find WALDO? You say, What about us? We haven't been in any of your plans for five years. In terms of organizing, remember the chart I talked about half an hour ago, who is responsible for the -- are they elected or appointed? If they are elected or appointed, do you know any of those people? Do they have a good reputation? Can you sit and talk to them before to find out from them before why have you guys been excluded? CALLER: Thank you. MR. STEVE GOLD: Okay. Next question? OPERATOR: That comes from Kansas Advocacy & Protective Services. CALLER: This is Kirk. MR. STEVE GOLD: How are you? CALLER: Good. Just over here at the Kansas P&A. I wonder if you have any advice on prioritizing P&A advocacy in the housing area. What would be the first thing you would advise the P&A to go after? MR. STEVE GOLD: That's tough. Let me tell you what I think are the easiest, OK. Because they are easy to see--that's the five percent. In the last 15 years, there has been a lot of federal money for new construction and rehabilitation. Most of the places that did not comply with the five percent rule or they don't have people with disabilities living in there. the consequence, you put them over a major, major barrel. Because now they have nondisabled people living in all these units, they have to come up with a remedy that is creative and puts you in the driver's seat. That is the easiest to see.Second thing I would do is I would get a list of all your local low income housing tax credit recipients -- in terms of Section Eight, we will discuss it much more on Wednesday -- two units may not discriminate based on Section Eight vouchers. One of them is the recipients of low income housing tax credits. If they are people around with those -- I'm sorry -- if there are people around with Section Eight housing vouchers having trouble finding places that will accept them and you know the addresses of the low income housing tax credit recipients, that is the places I would look. I mean, if you told me -- those are relatively straightforward, not complicated. I mean the first one is complicated in terms of digging because I have been working with people in Oakland, in Ohio, other places, Florida, the housing authority does not say oh, yeah, we have been wrong. they all know they are wrong. they know what is going on because there have been enough lawsuits now, but they will not tell you easily and quickly which of their units are accessible. the simple way -- depending on the size of your city, whatever, if you know the addresses, drive around and see if a person with a wheelchair can get in. CALLER: Thanks, Steve. MR. STEVE GOLD: Next question? OPERATOR: There are no further questions in queue at this time. MR. STEVE GOLD: Let me suggest something in the last two minutes so I make it -- use the entire 90 minutes. One of the things that I have been urging with some degree of varying success -- this is more for the centers for independent living. We are now at a point of computer sophistication, with the Excel program that you could develop a spreadsheet so that you will have for each kind of program, the street address of where they are, so that, for example, if 1234 Market Street is public housing, 50 units, as an example, and you put that down, both horizontally and vertically and what year, et cetera, and then when you look at your low income housing tax credits, you realize, they got housing tax credits five years ago to do renovations. You will then have a separate vertical column for 1234 Market Street that will also check off that. You can then play with that so you can look at your city by every kind of federal program. And, say, by street address, what money did they get, when, how many units? You cannot trust them to tell you how many units are accessible, meaning accessible by living -- by meeting Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards or et cetera, but you can then start including the Fair Housing Act housing, i.e., that 5678 Market Street just built an 110 unit apartment house and you go around and see the federal money and none of them were 5678 Market Street, federal money, and you know immediately, or you can make the presumption that it is not 504. It is only Fair Housing Act. And, therefore, therefore different accessibility and reasonable accommodation things trigger in. Guys, have a good 48 hours. The other thing is if people want, if you have specific questions. I don't have any problem if you e-mail me the question at stevegoldada@cs.com. I try to answer them. I'm sometimes quick and fast, but I try to. the other thing is don't get discouraged. This is complicated. It is not you. It is complicated. It takes a long time to figure it out. Once you do -- and it requires longevity in terms of making sure someone at your independent living center takes on housing that will be there for three, four, five years and will stick with it. Have a good two days, guys. Thank you. MR. FUCHS: Steve, I would like to ask you, please, to stick around for just a second. I'm going to read four questions that I was holding to the end for the Web cast. they are short. Please stay until the end of the call, everyone. I'm going to read these verbatim. In giving preference to disabled people in 504 housing, what happens if nondisabled persons occupy all the 5% set aside? Can nondisabiled be required to move to accommodate the disabled person looking for housing? MR. STEVE GOLD: As we say, that is a sticky wicket. We don't want to be known throughout your locale as the entity kicking out nondisabled people. But what has happened is your housing authority has screwed you--the disabled community -- by putting nondisabled people in there. So you have a number of choices. If you really want to be hard about it, the answer is, yes, you have to move them out. Second, if you want to be a little less hard about it, maybe instead of five percent of the units have to be accessible, you want a commitment from them that 15 percent over the next ten years will be accessible. And then as those units open up, the people at the independent living center are given notice and will then move people in. Or a combination. I mean, those units, if you think about this in terms of discrimination, if a person is on the waiting list for an accessible unit and they get to the top of the list and all the units that they should have been -- should have gotten are being used by nondisabled people because the housing authority didn't jump down to them, they have been discriminated against because the nondisabled unit will not meet their need. they will go into an inaccessible unit, which is not going to be satisfactory, or they will have to stay at the top of the waiting list, which is not a good way of doing it either. It's a political decision how you are going to do it. MR. FUCHS: I'm going to paraphrase the next question. Does Section 504 cover people with psychiatric disabilities? MR. STEVE GOLD: Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, yes. People with disabilities. the discrimination against people with psychiatric disabilities is different through discrimination than people who need physical access. the discrimination against people with psychiatric disabilities is pretty much the same no matter what kind of funding unit they are in. If someone has a psychiatric illness, then they may make a lot of noise at night or need need a lot of noise at night or need to smoke to relieve their anxiety or something. That is the same -- the accommodation might be the same whether it's a 504 unit or a Fair Housing unit. Both cover psychiatric. MR. FUCHS: Next question: Are you aware of anything available for mobile home accessibility in rural areas? MR. STEVE GOLD: No. But that may be because I am -- I'm not -- I'm not knowledgeable enough about rural areas to really talk with any degree of confidence. If you look on the materials that were given out, if USDA used the money to buy mobile homes and maybe the renovations and loan money could be done for mobile homes. I don't know why they would not be able to be. I don't know one way or the other that they are excluded, but I think common sense is if a person living in a mobile -- you are talking about a mobile stationary home as opposed to an RV. If that is the case, it is their home. The fact it is a mobile home is irrelevant. MR. FUCHS: Should apartments be set aside for people with disabilities and should one or more parking spaces be included with each apartment? MR. STEVE GOLD: Again, the regs talk about five percent new construction. I'm urging people if I'm being too subtle to demand more than that in 2004 for new construction. Yeah, parking is definitely included. Parking is not based on a percent. Parking is based on the number of parking spaces -- parking spaces in the complex. I don't have it in front of me. I think it is one for 25 . Something like that.As a reasonable accommodation, they may be able to get more than that if they are needed. MR. FUCHS: Okay. Thanks. That's all the questions I have. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you for the questions you have raised. I want to remind everyone to please complete the evaluations included in your packet and return the appropriate evaluation to the NCIL office. I would like to thank Steve for his time and effort in making this teleconference a success. Thanks and goodbye for now. Hopefully, we will see all of you on Wednesday. Steve, please stay on the line. Thanks, again, everyone.