Affordable, Accessible, Integrated Housing: Putting the Puzzle Together When the Pieces Don't Fit: Part II. Presented by Steve Gold on August 11, 2004 Sponsored by IL Net OPERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome to the NCIL affordable, accessible, integrated housing conference. Today's host will be Mr. Tim Fuchs. During the discussion, all participants will be muted. You will be allowed to ask questions during the presentation. And now without further delay I will turn the call over to Mr. Fuchs. TIM: Thank you. Hello, everyone. This Tim Fuchs of the IL NET. I'm very glad you all could join us for Part II of affordable, accessible, integrated housing, putting the puzzle together when the pieces don't fit. I will remind you all again that Part II of the teleconference is again brought to you by the IL NET, a collaborative project of ILRU and NCIL. If you're not familiar with the IL NET, there is a national training and technical assistance project serving to strengthen the independent living movement by supporting centers for independent living and statewide living councils. IL NET offers workshops, teleconferences, technical assistance, online workshops, training materials and other resources on operating CIL's and SILC's. Today's trainer is again Mr. Steve Gold. Today for Part II we again have 33 sites representing 19 states and approximately 187 participants. We also have approximately 80 participants joining us by webcast. I'd like to thank our site coordinators across the country for your participation interests 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'll be able to refer to that 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 just take a moment right now to pull out your copy of the evaluation form included in your participants materials and we'll remind you to fill it out at the end of the call. There are actually two evaluation forms, one is entitled teleconference evaluation form which is the one we would like to hear back from the NCIL office and the other is entitled site coordinator evaluation form which goes to your coordinators The latter form is given to your site coordinator at your location to assist in knowing how they're doing in meeting your needs on site. So please don't send it back to the NCIL office. I want to thank the site coordinators again for making copies of the manual for all participants. You'll find the agenda for today on page roman number 2 of your manual and site coordinators, just to remind you, you'll need to point out your corresponding page numbers in Braille and large print to your participants. Once again I'd like to introduce Steve Gold. So Steve, please go ahead. STEVE: Okay, thank you very much. This is Part II. I'm going to try very, very hard not to repeat stuff. Today we're going to get much more specific about specific kinds of federal programs, federal funded programs, and other housing programs that when you put the puzzles together you can get affordable, accessible integrated housing. I want to start off by -- we're going to amend a little bit the agenda because a number of people's questions raised some things that weren't on the agenda. It's very important for you to understand what the national voucher program is. And the voucher program -- a lot of different names, Section 8 is the big one we talk about mainstream vouchers that are specifically for small numbers, but specifically for people with disabilities. We talk about fair share vouchers -- all of these are part of the voucher program. So today I'm going to really talk a little bit generically about vouchers. There are two broad kinds of vouchers, project-based and tenant-based and it's really important to know the difference. Project-based voucher is the voucher is affixed to the property, to the unit, and when we talk in a little while, the next half an hour or so about multi-family subsidized housing, most of those have project-based vouchers affixed to those units. So that a voucher is nothing more than the federal government subsidizing the rent for a person so that an eligible person pays only between 30 and 40 percent of her or his income for housing and utilities combined. So that it's really important to understand how vouchers work because half of HUD's budget goes to reimbursing for vouchers. It's the largest, largest housing program in the country. And I talked to you about the other day when you go to the HUD web page for ha profiles -- that's H. A. for housing authorities profiles and you click on the left hand column for your local city, the back page will come up and you'll be able to find the number of vouchers that are available in your locale. Okay, now in the materials submitted -- provided to you today on Pages 40 through 45 -- I'm sorry -- 40 through 43 is a HUD sort of thumbnail description of what the housing choice voucher program is. It's called the housing choice voucher program fact sheet. This is taken from HUD's web page and it's basically a very, very simple kind of thing, but it tells you how the vouchers work in terms of who is eligible, local preferences -- very important -- I'm going to try to tie things together from Monday. When your Housing Authority that administers the vouchers or your state finance agency administers its vouchers provides-does its annual and five-year plans, if you're involved, you can get the preferences for the vouchers, which have to be listed so that you could clearly say people with disabilities living in inaccessible units, for example, should be given preference equal to and there are other groups that the housing authority's list as their preferences. Housing vouchers function -- I'm going to talk about the project-based and the tenant-based. The tenant-based is basically a piece of paper that a person applies for their housing authority and they get. Whereas non-disabled people who do not need an accessible unit can easily go out and find participating landlords, but landlords in the private market. So they can go to any newspaper and see what places are renting and call the landlord up and say I have a voucher or do you accept a voucher? And if they do and they are part of the certified buyer housing authority as a landlord, you can go and look at the place and see whether you like it. Now, for people with disabilities, it's a special problem as we all know. Just getting the voucher only gets you on first or second base because you then have to be able to find a place where you can use the voucher, i.e., an accessible unit. Now, this is really difficult, and some places have been much more successful than other places in the country. Now, Section 504 has some specific duties that the housing authorities have to do when they are administering their voucher program. For example, they have to somehow work with the private landlords to encourage them, quote-unquote, to participate with accessible units. They have to have a listing of participating landlords that also list those that are accessible. Now, this is really important because if you have a housing authority that has -- puts out every two weeks, every month a list of landlords that participate, meaning they've been certified to accept the voucher, and there are none that are accessible, that's a clear 504 violation. Or if they're all in one unit and you have a person in two or three needing a one bedroom and those people that participate in the voucher program don't have any accessible, that's a violation. The other thing that they have to do -- the housing authorities -- is they have to assist persons who are disabled to find accessible units. Assistance can be providing transportation. The Chicago housing authority provides a 5,000-dollar grant to the tenant -- to the voucher holder -- to make the place accessible, to help make the place accessible. They also have to do the following -- this is really critical and it's not done widely in the country, but it's a clear duty - - that if the person, the disabled person who has the voucher, cannot find a unit at the rents that we call the fair market rent, FMR, that is a rent set by HUD. It's done geographically all over the country by cities, by counties , et cetera. It's on the HUD web page under the fair market rent. If they cannot find an accessible unit, at the fair market rent, then they should go and they can find a unit above the fair market rent. They should go to their housing authority and request that as a reasonable accommodation that an exception be requested by the housing authority to HUD so that that accessible unit that they found can be lived in by the person with the voucher. Some places have gone way, way above the FMR, 190 percent of the FMR, the maximum I've heard so far. But it's not unusual to get to 120 percent of the FMR or even higher. Now, this is really important because if you have -- there was an op ed piece in the New York Times where the secretary of HUD -- where the numbers were played with not quite on the up and ups. The FMR in Washington D.C. for a two bedroom is about $1,200. If there are no accessible units listed by the housing authority at that -- for two bedroom as an example -- well, when you go up to 120 percent of the FMR, you know, you could be talking -- I can't do the math quickly -- but 120 percent of 1200 for a two bedroom. If you still can't find an accessible unit at that you can go higher by requesting your housing authority to request the exception to the FMR as a reasonable accommodation under Section 504. And this is really important, guys, because if they don't -- if the housing authority list doesn't list any accessible units, you can push them to go to much, much, much nicer housing that may be accessible or that will become accessible, and people with disabilities are the only group that can go above the fair market rent to get a reasonable accommodation. Now, that's for the tenant-based, but it's really important to figure out how you get that and where they are. That means you're going to basically deal with the private housing market. Now, obviously private landlords don't have to accept them, but if the private landlord knew that he, she or it was going to be paid at their market rent for their accessible unit, which may be above, well above the FMR, you're going to do two dynamics at work. You're going to pressure our housing authority to either come up with a way of getting landlords to participate at the FMR with accessible units or they'll have to do reasonable accommodation. That's all regarding tenant-based vouchers. This is different than project-based vouchers. Project-based vouchers, Section 504 applies and if they've had rehabilitation or new construction done since 1990-91, 5 percent of those units better be accessible when we start talking about the multifamily in a few minutes and where they are, et cetera, they better be accessible. And clearly because it's project-based, the tenant who moves in and doesn't pay any more than the 30 or 40 percent of him or her income or family income for that project-based unit. They pay the same thing, whether it be project-based or tenant-based. Now, that's really important because it's such a big program. Now, where can you apply those? Where can you use those vouchers so you can get units? Now, this is really important because there is a whole large number of houses and units that receive low-income housing tax credits. LIHTC and have been getting those for many, many years for new construction and rehabilitation. These as I told you Monday are administered by your state housing finance agency, most of which have a website, most of which will tell you where they have issued tax credits, but if they don't have it. Let me tell you the HUD website. This is not www. In the web address is the following -- lihtc.huduser.org. Let me repeat it, lihtc.huduser.org. You can then get on there and you will play around. You're going to do it by your state, you're going to do it by a whole bunch of options on the left-hand column and then you'll be able to get virtually to your city and it will give you the street addresses of buildings that have received low-income housing tax credits. The reason this is important. Let me explain what a low-income housing tax credit is. This is an entitlement that every state gets based on the number of low-income people. I don't know the exact form, but your state gets it every year and it basically lets private developers enter into agreements with businesses so that the business that puts the money up front for the developer of the building gets a tax credit for what they put up, so that it's a terrific deal for the low-income -- for the business. Banks love it, big corporations love it because this is not a tax deduction, this is a tax credit. And they can -- and they become the silent partner, basically, in the housing development. And it runs with the deed because they cannot discriminate against a Section 8 housing voucher holder. And if you don't think you guys have them over the barrel, I mean, think about a big business that's gotten tax credits five years ago and didn't pay taxes to the federal government five years ago or when whenever and they have signed papers saying they shall comply with I. R. S. provisions. It's the I. R. S. provisions that prohibit the Section 8 discrimination, they can not discriminate against the voucher.. And you then go to I. R. S. and say take back the tax credits, they are discriminating. And the way you find out they are discriminating, is the same way you do any other fair housing testing, whether it's race, whether it's gender -- you do a test to see whether -- if you called up -- you find out which is the owner that receives low-income housing tax credits when -- either for new construction or rehabilitation, and you call up and you ask them do they have any units available for rent. And you don't mention your disability, you don't mention any of that and get a yes. And then 15 minutes later you call back and you say -- or you go in and you have someone go in and say, I like to use my voucher -- my low-income Section 8 voucher. And if they then tell you we don't have any, we don't rent units or we don't rent to people with vouchers, you got them. So it's really important to know this. Now, the down side of both tenant-based vouchers and the low-income housing tax credit is that Section 504 does not apply. So the 5 percent rule does not apply. Now, what you therefore have to do -- there are two ways of getting -- remember we talked about affordable, accessible, integrated. There is no question that low-income housing tax credits are affordable. There is no question that it's integrated. How do you make it accessible? Well, there are two ways. First, you see whether your state housing finance agency has a requirement separate from 504, that a certain percentage has to be accessible. Many states -- some states do. And when we talk at the end of this hour and a half about statewide strategy and advocacy strategy, that's one thing you've got to do. But second, many, many developers, when they are putting together a development for housing, for low-income housing, they put a package together and they are looking for sources of money from many, many, many different sources putting a package together. One source is the low-income housing tax credit, but another source might be -- we're going to talk in a few minutes about the HOME program or the Community Development Block Grant program or the Hope 6 program -- and they may get money from one of those other sources to put together in a package. Well, it's important for you to know every single source of funding for that unit because even though the low-income housing tax credit may not trigger the Section 504 accessibility duty, the same way that Section 8 tenant-based doesn't trigger, one of these other programs might. And let me just drop a footnote to remind you, I'm talking tenant-based doesn't trigger it. Project-based vouchers does trigger it, the section 504. Don't ask me to explain it. That's the way it is. There was a bad second circuit decision a number of years ago, and life goes on. We have to work with what we have. Okay, that's how the voucher works. That's how the low-income housing tax credits -- they are all over -- you will be shocked, truly shocked. I will bet you when you download the street addresses because you've driven by them. They don't advertise that they are recipients of low-income housing tax credits. They don't look like public housing. Some public housing authorities are also getting some vouchers when they put together a Hope 6 project. I'll go into that in a minute or two. They don't advertise. There are no neon signs saying we receive low-income housing tax credits. You have to find them. The other day we talked about doing a spreadsheet so that you have the address, you have an address and you found that they receive low-income housing tax credits five years ago, and the rule of thumb -- the low-income housing tax credits have legal duties not to discriminate for -- I don't have it in front of me -- it's at least ten years. It may be 11 or 12. I don't remember off hand, but I think it's at least 10. So you have to find out when the tax credit was allocated or when it went into effect, not just when your state housing agency authorized it, but when was it actually begun to be used by the program. Now, one of the things that we don't have an answer to, that I don't have an answer to -- I'm sure there are people out there who do, but I'm not sure about -- you will see when you go into the HUD low-income housing tax credit web page and you get to your specific town, city, et cetera, is that the project gets low-income housing tax credits, but they have other units as well. So let's just take hypothetically a recipient -- a developer has built 150 unit apartment house. And 50 of those units received low-income housing tax credits. All right? So those 50 clearly cannot discriminate against the voucher holder. The other 100 though -- you have to figure out did they receive other kinds of federal money and/or was the other kinds of federal money spread throughout the 150? And you've got the figure that out and learn it because that's what triggers the other federal money triggers the 504 duty and therefore the 5 percent and therefore the distribution -- we talked the other day about the distribution by bedroom size, et cetera, and the distribution -- the requirement that people with disabilities be given a priority. So you've got to -- remember we talked about putting the blocks into the shaped holes if they might not fit neatly. That's what we're doing here. Let me now talk a little bit about one other -- quickly -- and in the materials that we sent out to people, on Pages 47 and 48 you'll see an overview of the tax credit program and how it works as a generalized matter. Okay, you now also have to look at -- and also I'm going to give you some information bulletin numbers for some more information. The other day I told you my website is www.Stevegoldada.com. If you want to look at information bulletins for vouchers, it's 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, 15. Okay, for low-income housing tax credit they are in there as well and I cannot remember the numbers offhand. I'm sorry. Then there is a whole program called the HOME program. The HOME investment partnership program. Now, this is a program which the state and your cities receive money for the last 11 years for new construction for rehabilitation and for tenant-based rental assistance, which is basically nothing more than a voucher program. Okay, so let me talk about the new construction and rehabilitation. We're talking about large numbers -- $15 billion went to rental and I can't remember what years -- making 329,000 new rental units, about 100,000 vouchers. Now, you have to know in your area who were the recipients of the HOME money, and it's all caps, HOME. And if you go to bulletins 14, 60 and 61 on my web page, you will see where you can find -- you can download from the HUD page the street so you can get your street addresses in your local areas, where they have been giving money in the last few years, where they said they were building and how many units. Now, the reason the HOME program is also important is because the HOME program, like the voucher -- like the low-income housing tax credits -- is prohibited from discriminating against voucher holders. Because if you don't have a voucher program, both the low-income housing tax credit and the HOME program -- the rent will be clearly too high for many, many -- for most people who are on SSI. For many, many people who are disabled and may be getting SSDI, but not at the high levels, but more the medium levels. Even though there are clear limit requirements of the number of units for the low-income housing tax credit and the HOME, that have to be built and made available for percentages of people at various median income. By and large, if they don't have a Section 8 voucher, it's hard for them. Obviously, two single people getting together, living together, is much more doable in terms of meeting the rent for a two bedroom with two people on SSI. I did not talk about -- I'm going to talk a little later about home ownership when we bring back the voucher program again. But the HOME program is a huge source. It's administered by both your local areas that are basically like the entitlement areas and they get money every year from HUD to do -- and they can decide it's a three year consolidated plan, the locales your state housing people decide how they are going to spend their HOME money. Are they going to do new construction? Are they going to do rehabilitation? Are they going to do tenant-based rental assistance? That's a political decision again. That's a decision that you guys have to get involved -- absolutely have to get involved in helping them decide how it's going to be done. If you're not at the table, it won't be done -- you guys will get screwed on it. Now, the third big program before we take a break -- we're going to have four breaks during this hour and a half -- is something called the Hope 6 program. The HOME and the Hope 6 are funded by HUD. The Section 8 vouchers are funded by HUD. The low-income housing tax credit is a tax credit funded -- quote-unquote funded, administered, credited by I. R. S. Hope 6 -- and you can find that at my information bulletin 56 which recipients got it this past year and I think you can go back and see other years as well -- this is really important because Hope 6 is sort of like a conglomeration of public housing, some private housing, some mixed income, but clearly knowing that it's a Hope 6, you will know, you know, which are the public housing units and therefore have to be available for the lowest income, which are the units that Hope 6 money -- which of the units that got low-income housing tax credits, and therefore, must accept people with Section 8 vouchers. Okay, half an hour, let's take a break and let's get some questions and answers, please. OPERATOR: if you have a question at this time, you may press 0, 1 on your telephone. We do have a few questions, the first question comes from Tricounty Independent Living Center. Go ahead, please. CALLER: Yes, my name is Carol. We have a question with regard to low-income housing tax credit housing. STEVE: Yes. CALLER: Would it be possible to request a waiver of minimum income as a reasonable accommodation for a voucher holder for example who is on SSI. STEVE: I understand exactly what you're saying. It's a very, very clever way of approaching it, whoever the caller was. (long beep). I'm going to talk by analogy because the low-income housing tax credit program, remember, is not subject in and of itself to Section 504. It is a housing tax credit. Now, let me suggest if they built it so that it fits under the Fair Housing Act, i.e, four units or more, elevator -- remember the stuff we went over on Monday. Then you definitely could do that or could try to do that. There was a -- and there are many ways of doing the reasonable accommodation. We talked about the other day about the ninth circuit decision that talks about reasonable accommodation when you have a person who is disabled and someone else being a -- put in paying the month down or the security deposit or signing as -- basically being co-responsible for the unit. If it's just low-income housing, my gut says -- and it's not under the federal fair housing -- my gut says it's hard. Is it worth a shot? Sure. Let me tell you what you could do and I never ever thought of this before. Why are we not talking to our state housing people and our Governors pointing to the state housing saying that if the persons on SSI, then you want them to be given a special preference or something like that. One of the problems you got with the low-income housing tax credit is it is clearly private market driven. So they have to get enough developers for whom it is going to make economic financial sense. One of the things we're doing in Pennsylvania because of -- just begun this year -- is we have given extra points in bidding to get the tax credits. And these tax credits are really desired by the businesses for persons -- for businesses and developers that agree to have a certain number of people at the SSI income level, without the Section 8 vouchers. So we're given extra bidding points and we've economically crunched the numbers to show that how many they could do and still make the project float. So it's not quite called a reasonable accommodation, but it's getting at the same thing through the fair housing -- through the state housing agency. That's along winded answer. Next question. Did I put you all to sleep on that one? OPERATOR: the next question comes from Tricounty patriot. CALLER: I just thought you had a question. No, I'm sorry. STEVE: Did I answer that? CALLER: Yes, you did. STEVE: It's not a simple answer. You guys have to be creative. You've got to think about it from both the state level and, you know, as a lawyer I think about it from the litigation point of view, but I think in housing particularly we should be thinking about organizing first and pressure and housing is political -- equals political pressure. Keep remembering that. So the question is, you know, developers clearly want the low-income housing tax credits, how can we make the package still financially doable while pressuring the administrators, i.e, the state housing people to do it. Next question. OPERATOR: the last question comes from Freedom Resource Center. Go ahead, please. CALLER: (Inaudible). STEVE: I can't hear you. Talk closer to the phone, please. CALLER: Freedom resource center. The question Operator: Yes Maam, go ahead please, Caller: The question I have is for tenant-based vouchers. Would it be a violation of the state discrimination law or the fair housing act for a landlord to refuse to accept tenant-based vouchers, for example, Section 8 because they are discriminating on the basis of disability, a person with a disability? STEVE: Okay, unfortunately, there is a second circuit decision that is right on point. And it's only the second circuit that I think wrongly decided, but that is the law and has been pretty much -- no one has quite, quite challenged it frontally since then. A number of years ago the second circuit says it was not discrimination based on disability, it was discrimination based on income. Now, one of the things that's really important about the Section 8 that may be as a practical way around it, many, many, many participating landlords or landlords who know about Section 8, and in many cities Section 8 is a terrible stigma for many reasons, race, bad administration, housing authorities not caring about administering them properly. Okay, but until a number of years ago, and I don't remember exactly how long, five or six, if a landlord agreed to participate in a Section 8 program, then they had to take anyone and everyone who came to the door with a voucher. That is not the case anymore. More recently, and I think subsequent to that second circuit decision, HUD amended the regulations so that a landlord can be much -- have much more discretion on to whom they rent and with whom they accept the Section 8 voucher. Now, why is that important? Because particularly the centers for independent living on this phone call, you guys should be doing some prescreening of disabled people who have Section 8 vouchers, and you should be the downfield blockers, finding out which landlords participate and entering a relationship with those landlords, particularly in the larger complexes, by saying, look, we have people with disabilities. We've known them for many, many years. We work with them. We work with them in many, many different contexts. You know, we are ready to vouch for them as -- they will be good tenants. We know that. We know them. Landlords, by accepting one person with a disability, you don't have to accept others. And landlord, you can get close to your market rent because our housing authority does not have accessible units on their list for people who have vouchers. So if you're renting a two bedroom, for example, at $1,500 or whatever it is -- I don't know what the market -- wherever you live, but is accessible or you're ready to make it accessible, it's an incredible win-win for the landlord and the person with the disability. Because that voucher is -- Section 8 voucher is good for a number of years. If you were a landlord and you knew by making your unit accessible -- I mean sometimes it may mean putting some -- and by the way, there are tax incentives for making housing accessible. All right, so you can really talk to them about how to do that. If you can talk to them about A, how to do it with tax incentives and tax deductions to make the place accessible, and B, getting a tenant for whom the rent is going to be guaranteed virtually for seven years and then there after by being renewed, at their market rent, for the landlord, that's a terrific situation because you know that it's going to be a tenant in there and if the centers for independent living are ready to stick their neck outs a little bit by saying, look, we know this person -- obviously we're not asking you to be cosigners or anything, but by working with the landlord and saying, we can get you other tenants, we know the people. We work with them. These are great, great people. The only thing is they have a disability -- so what. It's a great win- win for both the landlord, the disability community and the centers for independent living. Next question. OPERATOR: Steve I have a question from a webcast participant. If the housing authority says they have no money for aiding accessibility, e.g like ramps, grab bars, et cetera, what do you do? STEVE: the way you asked the question, I'm assuming this is not Section 8. I'm assuming this is in their public housing bricks and mortar program. Remember we said the other day the housing authority administers two programs, one is the houses they built and the ones the housing authority owns. And the second one is the Section 8, which they administer papers that are rental supplement to the private market. I'm assuming your question deals with bricks and mortars. I tell them tough, find the money. They have -- it's discrimination, a violation of Section 504 to put a person in a unit with a disability that they cannot use. It is a clear violation of a civil rights statute, find the money. And I don't want to hear any excuses. Take them to court if you need to. One of the things you guys have to understand is there is lots of money out there. First of all the accommodations we're talking about are not that expensive, and secondly, they have money. This year, next year, let them go for -- they got the money. Money is not an excuse. It's a little harder when you're talking about Section 8 vouchers. Remember, we told you one of the things they had to do is they have to have in their Section 8 program, I'm switching now -- they have to have a certain number -- there is no percentage -- but they have to have a reasonable number of participating landlords and participating units that are accessible for people with disabilities, and if they don't, they got to find a way of doing it. And if they want to do it with the carrot, the way Chicago has done it or a carrot could be some other way, your housing authority could go to your city or to your state and say give us a grant for home mod money. We want to administer a home mod program for a section 8 tennants. Lots of different ways, but they've got the duty to do it or it's discrimination under Section 504. Next question or I'm ready to move on. TIM: Steve, one more question. This person states -- or says you stated if any rehab or reconstruction on apartment complexes have been done, then 5 percent better be accessible. I thought that under the Fair Housing Act rehab units were exempt. Please clarify this for me. STEVE: I'm talking under Section 504, that if any federally financed housing, recipients of federal financial assistance-- if they got money and either built new construction or did -- I said the other day -- substantial modification, and I don't want to get too technical in the difference between substantial and non substantial. Just take it generally speaking, then they have to have 5 percent of the units accessible under 504. That's different from the Fair Housing Act. Under the Fair Housing Act, they have to have covered -- the units have to be under the covered definition that I went over on Monday. TIM: One last question and I'll let you move on. I understand that someone with a disability can petition the PHA to get HUD to go to around 190 percent of FMR if they find an accessible unit that is privately owned. My understanding, however, HUD is simply allowing the PHA to go higher and not necessarily giving the PHA more money. So if PHA doesn't have the money already, does it do any good? STEVE: The answer is yes, it does good. First of all you don't start at 190 percent of the Section 8 voucher. First, you start at 120 percent. The only reason that they have a duty to go above 110 percent to 120 percent, 130 percent, 140 percent of the FMR is because they have not -- they the housing authorities -- have not done their other homework and they're discriminating by not providing -- having available accessible Section 8 participating units and landlords. If they can do it some other way, then they have no duty to go above the FMR. The FMR duty triggers in when they don't have the other units available that are accessible. And I never -- didn't mean to suggest that you start at 190 percent. They have money. They have administration costs. Let them take it from their administration costs. They've got money. Guys, they have money. Don't accept the baloney that they don't have money. Take them to court. Do discovery, you'll find money. You'll find how they waste money and don't spend money. TIM: Thanks so much, Steve. We can move on. STEVE: Now, I want to move to something called the Community Development Block Grant program, another federally financed program, therefore, 504 triggers in. This is a discretion money that comes into every -- that goes throughout the country, both to locales that are above a certain number of people and to the state to distribute to small rural and smaller locales. Now, the problem is that -- not a problem -- the way the law is structured, and if you look on Page 52 of the handout, you'll see information bulletin 65 where we dealt with the CDBG money. I also dealt with it in my information bulletin 16 and 51 as well. The recipient of the money, whether it be the city or the state, can decide how they're going to spend the community development block money. It doesn't have to go to housing. It can -- and one of the information bulletin that is we've put out, I guess it was either 65 or 61 -- there is a website that if you go to you'll see how your local housing authority -- I'm sorry -- how your recipient of the CDBG money, the Community Development Block Grant money has in fact allocated its money. It can use it for many, many, many different things. It can use it for housing. Nearly a billion dollars went to -- in the last three -- I'm sorry, in each of the last three years, about a billion dollars went to housing. And it doesn't necessarily mean low-income housing. It could be low to moderate income housing. It could be moderate income housing. Community Development Block Grant is how they spend the money is indicated and has to be laid out in its consolidated plan. Every year consolidated plan and the longer one and what you have to do is you have to get those consolidated plans to see where the money was spent in the past. And you'll be able to go around and you'll see if it's low-income. You'll be able to go around and see if it's accessible. Because besides -- so there is housing. There is also a billion dollars went each year for something called public improvements. What is public improvements? Well, how about removal of architectural barriers. How about curb cuts, sidewalks, streets. Another $500 million throughout the country went for something called public services, including one line item is services for the disabled, rental housing subsidies, security deposits. How the money is spent is a local decision. Let me sort of crow a little bit. The disability community in Philadelphia, which I'm really, really proud, took on the city council, city of Philadelphia council and a coalition with non disabled housing low-income advocates set up a low-income affordable housing coalition of which one rung or one spoke was accessible home modification for people with disabilities. And after two years worth of political struggle, they finally got $5 million -- I think it was 5 million, I may be off -- a large number, three to five million in the CDBG funds for a home modification program for low-income people. Well, that's not chicken soup. That's real home mod money that people can get and use. You could also do it -- you can also clearly as a political handle talk about it in terms of universal access, that is to say, you could clearly require that any recipient of CDBG money, of HOME money, of Hope 6 money, of low-income housing tax credit money have at least universal access, as well as percentages of accessible units. Now, clearly the CDBG money can be well above 5 percent. That's the floor of Section 504. You could do 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent of the units that are accessible for people with disabilities. They could be any kind of single homes, they could be home ownership, anything you want. It's purely a political, local and state decision depending on which entity is allocating the CDBG money. But if you're not at the table pressuring your housing people and making them part of your consolidated plan, it's not going to happen. If you're not in your state -- if you don't have a statewide coalition forcing your state housing agencies to make -- to recognize disability as a bona fide and legitimate housing need for people in this state, it's not going to happen. It hasn't happened historically and it won't happen in the future. And if it is happening historically, you can get more, but my suggestion is the way the Philadelphia -- and we're not a model. I just know about it, and I'm very proud about it, the way the people in Philadelphia disabled community did it, was they analyzed the consolidated plan going back five or ten years. And they saw how much money every year went to housing, and they found out which of those units were not 5 percent accessible and they found out, you know, what other needs people with disabilities had and they pressured the allocation to reflect what their needs were. And they were very successful. On the page -- on Page 52 of your handout, there is the HUD web page of how to do it. Now, one of the things I got an E-mail after Monday -- and a few people, those of you -- I had trouble. I lost a number of stuff. I got a number of people who asked to be put on the list serve, I'm not sure I got everybody. Some questions came in that they went to the HUD page and they couldn't get it. I don't understand why that happens. When I use what is listed here, it works. There must be other ways of getting on that I'm not aware of or that your computer has a program -- you've got to figure out how to do it. Ask a computer person to help you. I know when I put it on here, I have twice at least done it and following the steps that I gave you on my computer and it works. So I can't tell you what happens, but if you go through this, you will see for your local city and your state -- and you've got to go through the whole thing because your state is giving out money, too, how they've allocated those funds in the past. But the importance of the Community Development Block Grant is you can make -- and the other thing I also -- you can make or truly get affordable, accessible, integrated housing. One of the things that we did a separate way is we told you where to find -- if you go to my web page, not as a separate information bulletin, but for '01, '02, and '03, we gave you how much money and how many houses of new construction your local people built for CDBG and the HOME program for those years. And that's a great place to start, but if you really want to get more sophisticated and find out whether your local people, you know, used their money for other uses under the CDBG like programs for people with disabilities, like rental subsidies, like home deposits, go to the page -- the web page on Page 52. Let me stop again, even though it's only 13 minutes and answer questions again if there are any. OPERATOR: if you do have a question at this time, you may press 0, 1 on your telephone key pad. TIM: Steve, before we get a teleconference question, I'll come up with a webcast question. This person asks how do you get people to the top of the Section 8 list and then right after that how do you prevent homelessness? STEVE: Well, I can answer the first question a lot easier than the second question. I assume the person means homelessness of people with disabilities which I can try to address a little bit. You get people to the top of the Section 8 waiting list by changing the preferences in the PHA plans. By changing the preferences in the consolidated plans so that people with disabilities rise to the top of the preference list. The preferences can be -- you know, in terms of the allocation of the Section 8 vouchers, can be anything your local people want. It could be, you know, people who are left-handed. It could be people who are homeless. It could be people who use wheelchairs. It could -- whatever the -- that's a political decision. So the way you get them to the top of the priority is by changing the preferences. That's easy. The way to prevent homelessness, particularly for people with disabilities, is a much harder question. And I had several E-mails yesterday and/or today about specifically those questions. And I don't have any magic bullet. If the person does not have the Section 8 voucher, I don't know what they do. Unless your local area has a homeless program which if they do, they probably get federal money for it, which therefore means that Section 504 would trigger in, which means they better have an accessible place to put the person who is disabled and homeless. I don't have a better, more persuasive answer. This is like a series of dominos; it takes a number of years to begin to fall. Once they begin to fall over, a lot of things happen in terms of opening up the housing stock and it can take years. You know, we as a disability community are relatively new to the housing game. We are probably the newest players on the block. And we just got to get at the table and start exercising our political muscle. Next question. TIM: Michelle, do we have any questions from the teleconference participants? OPERATOR: Yes, sir, one question in the queue from Independence First. CALLER: the question is, do you know what state housing agencies require the builders or developers to follow 504? And do you know of anyone who has had successful advocacy efforts with their housing agencies regarding that issue? STEVE: the answer is yes, a number of states have had success. I don't have at fingertips, which they are -- I know being from Philadelphia, but Pennsylvania has it and it wasn't implemented. And we thought it was being implemented for a number of years and it was only in the last year or two or enforced and we started pressuring the housing agency to enforce their own regulations, but I did a training for the SILC in San Diego a year or 2 ago, and when I asked that I was surprised to see a few states has this as maybe part of the allocation plans for the low-income housing tax credits and maybe part of their allocation plans for their HOME allocations and their CDBG -- all three of which can be -- it can be made part of all of those three, but there are a number of states. Whether your state has it is the issue. I know Pennsylvania does and I'm totally blanking on other states. If you know whether your state has it, E-mail it to me I'll try to get something out, but I'm just telling you guys, that's a great organizing issue. At the end we'll talk about state strategies. Every state should have it. And if they don't -- not just have it on paper, but enforce it. Because it's easy for the state housing people to think of themselves as a bank, right? And the banker gives out the money. And after the money is given out, cities do the same thing on CDBG. They give out the CDBG money to the local community development corporations to build and then they sort of wash their hands and say, we don't have anything more to do with it. And the answer with that is wrong. They the recipients of the money, whether it be the local CDBG recipient, the local is city housing or the state, and they are then -- they have the duty to administer the programs in a way that doesn't discriminate. So they have the duty to make sure there is enforcement and if there is a 5 percent trigger, whether it be under the Section 504, or I think it's discrimination -- I think it's discrimination for your state housing agencies that have the requirement of a certain percentage to be accessible and have the requirement that these be given first priority to people with disabilities and then don't enforce it to be a section -- a 504 violation, not because of the 5 percent, but because they are enforcing other sections of their provision, but methods of administration is such that they close their eyes when it comes to accessibility. Okay. Any more questions? OPERATOR: Yes, we do have one from the center for community access. Go ahead, please. CALLER: Yes, according to several community activists, Steve, I have a question pertaining to trying to prevent homelessness. How does a person, as well as a landlord, try to help in preventing homelessness, and he wants to have his property-- like he owns a single home and he wants to rent it to people with disabilities but this individual does not have a voucher, but how can he be able to -- have that property subsidized in some way? STEVE: the only way is if there is either a home rental supplement they could do, that he receives money for rehabilitation that way, or if there is a local homeless program that provides rent supplement out of state money or city money or other homeless money to all homeless people and that this person with a disability would fit under that rubric. And other than that I don't have any answers and I don't have any magic to suggest. CALLER: This person is trying to come out of a nursing home and that's the worst place to be right now.. STEVE: That's a good segue into the business about Olmstead and using housing as part of the Olmstead planning process. Okay? CALLER: All right. STEVE: Moderator, can we move on? OPERATOR: There are no more questions at this time. STEVE: I'm going to move on. This question was a good segue into Olmstead and housing. One of the problems is that so, so often the state agencies are bifurcated so that you have a medical assistance secretary of welfare for example that administers their medical assistance program which includes nursing homes and waivers; but has no housing responsibility whatsoever. Well, my suggestion is that you sort of look higher up in this state schema, hierarchy, and you go after the governor and you make the governor appoint to your Olmstead planning commission someone -- staff person from your state housing finance agency. Because they have housing money. And they should be at the table so that -- so that when the Olmstead people are talking about housing, they can identify the housing needs, whether it's security deposit, whether it's rental supplement, whether whatever it is to get people out. The other thing that's really, really, really important that someone should -- you know, should be raising a terrible stink about and I've been unsuccessful. In fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2002, if you look on my web page under housing, you will see the recipients of something called the fair share housing vouchers. Now, in those two fiscal years, fair share housing vouchers are competitive. Not every housing authority gets it like an entitlement. They've got to apply. And during those two years, because of basically -- my perception was that that pressuring secretaries of housing, maybe other housing advocacy groups did as well, but I know ADAPT did, to basically get people out of nursing homes that for those two fiscal years, housing authorities got extra points when they applied for discretionary vouchers. They got 15 points when they said that 15 percent of their vouchers would be used by people with disabilities. They got an additional I think, 5 percent -- 5 points when they said an additional 3 percent of the vouchers would be used by people who were on the HOME and community-based waiver. i.e, people in institutions, like people in nursing homes, people in those M. R. centers. Okay, so what happened is HUD gave these points and almost -- not all -- but almost all the recipients during those two years of vouchers got points so that they told -- HUD believed that they then -- those vouchers would then be used, 15 percent for people with disabilities, and another 3 percent with people on waivers. When I asked HUD, have you tracked it? HUD has admitted they have no way of tracking it. So HUD gave the money, gave the vouchers, and then assumed that the local housing authorities would then administer their programs in compliance with the basically legal contract they entered with HUD to get 15 percent to people with disabilities and another 3 percent on the waivers. Well, I don't have any doubt, guys, any doubt, that if you go on the web page, my web page and you look for 01 and 02 fiscal year recipients of fair share waivers, and you see if your housing authority got it, but your housing authority -- unless they were working would the centers for independent living or unless they were working for the medical assistance people who knew who was on the waiver, that there is no question that they didn't know who was getting a waiver. So they were not used for that. And I would be shocked, again, second time in this teleconference, I would be really very surprised, if not shocked, if they knew how many people were disabled and needed the vouchers. So you should be pressuring your housing authorities to identify the recipients of those housing authorities that got vouchers. So for example, let's assume your housing authority got 150 vouchers in '02, and they told -- and they told HUD that they were going to use 15 percent for people with disabilities, that's 23 units that should have been used for people with disabilities and they told HUD that another 3 percent or 5 -- you know, almost 30 people out of the 150 would have been disabled clearly, and five would clearly be on the waiver. You should be asking them who are they? Identify them. Has it happened? That's for the past because if it hasn't happened, you've got them over a barrel. Now, in the future, you should be sitting down with your Olmstead people, so there should be a component of Olmstead planning, not just for waivers, not just for the option to get people attendant care and other services, not just for getting people M. R. waivers, but for people getting housing as well. It's people with disabilities, it's people on a waiting list, but it has not happened. Even though the structure was in place, it hasn't happened. Now, some states have been successful at it, and in one of these teleconferences, we talked about Arkansas and how they cleverly used their combining with Olmstead to get part of their state plan to bring in housing. That would clearly have to be done at a statewide level. But it's in the interest of your -- at least your governor -- your governor is above both your secretary of welfare that may -- well, administers the medical systems plan that therefore is paying unnecessarily to keep people in nursing homes, and also administers the waiver program and on the left hand, and on the right hand there are people the governor appoints to the state housing agencies that are giving away money for housing. It's in the governor's interest to make sure that the money follows the person and that the money for the housing agency gets used and tied together so that the state will save money by getting people out of the nursing homes and we'll have housing money for them when they are ready to get out. Otherwise, it's not going to happen. You've got to force your governor. Don't forget I sent out a recent information bulletin that this past July, at the national governor's association meeting in Seattle, the governors have introduced a resolution to basically support MiCASSA and the support money follows the people and have other kinds of stuff. Look on the web page and make sure your governor is going to vote yes on that. If the NGA forces the CMS to spend the money the right way, we can be forcing -- we can get housing components as well involved in that. So you really want to make sure your governor understands. She or he can save money. That's the name of their game and the way they can save money is say the money follows the person, the way they can save money is MiCASSA. The way they can save money is a whole bunch of ways if they vote yes on the NGA waiver. It's a whole bunch -- even if they don't do that, you should be pressuring them to force the governor to get money out -- to make people get out of the nursing homes. We know there is approximately 20 percent of the people in nursing homes who have answered, yes, they want to get out. Well, one reason they're not getting out is housing. One of the big reasons they're not getting out because in the last ten years we've been pretty successful nationally getting waiver services. Well, we've got to start being advocates for getting housing supports. We're not there by a long shot yet, but we could be. That's going to the next year's worth of strategies and political struggles. Now, home ownership -- there is no reason for people with disabilities not to get into home ownership. And Section 8 vouchers can be used for home ownership. Now, one of the things that's a total, total tragedy is the sparsity of home ownership being used for Section 8. That requires your housing authority to do a little more. It requires your housing authority to tell how they want to participate. You know, we think it's a sin in the city the size of Philadelphia with 39 home ownerships, and we don't know any of them with people with disabilities. Well, home ownership can be done in a number of ways with Section 8. It could be individual. It could be families; it could be two people with disabilities together, husband and wife, two people living together, partners, whatever. Getting together and doing it, but your housing authority has to take the first initiative. And if they don't do it, it ain't going to happen. Okay, it's 4:14 eastern time. Questions. OPERATOR: if you have a question at this time, you may press 0, 1 on your telephone key pad. I do show one audio question coming from Arizona bridge. Go ahead, please. CALLER: This is Paula from Arizona bridge, and I have a question regarding definition. Getting a family out of a nursing home, a father being reunited with his two children, we found in tax credit property advertised a three bedroom accessible apartment. We went to see it. The apartment was beautifully accessible in the common areas, kitchen, dining area, living room, and a beautiful accessible bath and bedroom. The other two bedrooms were down an extremely narrow hallway as was the other bath. They couldn't be accessed by anyone in any kind of wheelchair. Is that a three bedroom accessible apartment? STEVE: No. CALLER: Thank you. I asked them to fix it and they weren't too nice about it. STEVE: Did they do it? CALLER: No. STEVE: How is that father supposed to take care of the two kids? CALLER: You can't get into the kids rooms to check things out. The kids love it. STEVE: I'm sure the kids love it, but the father has a parental responsibility under the law. CALLER: So we'd be right going in saying this isn't accessible. STEVE: Absolutely. You're talking about moving the walls so that a person in a wheelchair -- that place should never have been built such a narrow hallway. CALLER: Right. Thank you. STEVE: Next question. OPERATOR: I do have one more question from Independence First. Go ahead, please. STEVE: Before you do that question, can I say something else? That question raises something in my mind. I'm sorry Independence First, let me interrupt you. I think it's really important for the disability community in this country to begin to act prospectively in the following sense. That question wouldn't have come up if the following thing had occurred: If when you're finding out the tax allocation plans for 2004, that the places are going to be built in '05 and '06. The CDBG allocations in '04 for places built in '05 and '06, The home program allocation for this year and next year and the year after and you want the street address and you want the developer and you want to get to the developer now, and you want to put in writing to the developer, these are the accessible unit requirements and Mr. Developer, Ms. Developer, developer entity, we have people ready to move in. We will have people ready to move in when they are ready. We want to have a -- I really believe -- I know people are going to laugh on this. I really believe in sugar and honey rather than guns and lawsuits. I only like guns and lawsuits when the sugar and honey doesn't work because of the other people. And if the other side is willing to be a partner with you, and say, okay, let's figure out what it's going to do so we do it right. So you don't work out the situation was, that you have a hallway too narrow for a person in a wheelchair, and they call that a quote, unquote, accessible unit.. So you don't start spending money to retro fit something that should be built correctly the first time. I'm sorry. Next question. OPERATOR: Go ahead Independence First. CALLER: We had a situation where we tried to help a person in a nursing home move out to buy their own home. And the housing authority kind of resisted and didn't want to help out. We had a voucher. We want to know -- they had a voucher, but the housing authority wasn't willing to accept that. We want to know the best way to approach that situation that we can help that person move out of the nursing home? STEVE: Okay, it's a broader problem than just the person moving out. The first question is does your housing authority have a home ownership program? And if the answer is yes -- CALLER: Yes, it does. STEVE: Then they can't discriminate because the person is in a nursing home. If the person has a voucher and they meet the other criteria -- I mean, you'll see that the home ownership program -- home ownership is not easy, right? And there are lots of things that come up that people may not know who have never owned a home. But if that person meets all the other qualifications and just because they are living in a nursing home now, that's not a reason for denying them the home ownership participation in the program. If another disabled person in the same family situation was not in the nursing home and they were going to do it for that person, it's clearly discrimination because the person is in a nursing home. That's not a basis for not letting them participate in the home ownership program. I would file a complaint with HUD on that one. CALLER: Maybe I should clarify what I meant a little bit. Well, you know what, never mind. STEVE: Okay, if you want to E-mail me, my assumption this has to do with a northern state in the Midwest. CALLER: Yes. STEVE: Okay, E-mail me. And we'll try to talk about it further in terms of what the problem was, but as a generic -- or as a hypothetical kind of a situation, and if the local housing authority has -- by the way, in order to have the home ownership program, they have to comply with certain HUD regulations and you want to be familiar with those HUD regulations and see whether they put down -- whether there is anything that says no institutionalized people. And see whether your local housing authority for 01 and 02 applied for the fair share including the 3 percent. Because that person could be on the waiver, which raises -- maybe I wasn't clear enough before. I'm moving on a little bit, that when you are sitting down with Olmstead and the vouchers, you really want to get -- you have a major ally in your secretary or commissioner who is running the medical assistance program which many places is both the nursing home and the waiver. Because they want to get people out -- they want to move that money out of the nursing home. Many of them, many of them in this country know they are totally wasting money by spending on a nursing home if the person can live in the community. And if they have a waiver slot that's not been filled -- and by the way as a little footnote, if the waiver slot is not filled, people have an entitlement to that slot. If the person responsible for administering them has to use the slot. If the reason they're not using the slot is there is no housing for the person to move into, accessible housing, you want to basically through the Olmstead plan get to your governor, get your secretary of welfare to get to your governor to say we need 20 -- we need 20 units, we need 30 units or 50 units or whatever the number is in this area. And if we did that, this governor knows how much money we can save. That will put the light on. From the voucher point of view, from the low-income housing tax point of view, it's probably a wash. Not a loss of their money. Clearly a savings from the point of view of unnecessary institutionalization of people in nursing homes. Okay, any more questions? OPERATOR: There are no more questions at this time. STEVE: Good. I move on. We're now coming to the end. The last item on the agenda was advocacy strategies. And I've alluded on Monday and today, there are clear strategies that are applicable in your states and locales. Let's first deal with the states, and I basically on Page 58 went over a number of them and some of them in the questions alluded to them. You want your state to incorporate -- and they can do this at the snap of a finger, nothing preventing it -- to Section 504 and the federal Fair Housing Act Amendments. So that recipients of either low-income housing tax credits, state -- any state housing program, whether it's state money or other federal money or low-income housing, has to comply as a condition of receiving that money. They'll comply. Promise, you guys, they want the money. They'll comply. It's not a big deal if it's prospective. Clearly, you want to amend your low-income housing tax credit allocation plan to require the Section 504 or more than 5 percent be accessible, and you really want enforcement, monitoring. It's really, really important. You want something more than just a sham on the papers. Many, many, many states have -- basically it's called not either fair housing agencies or it's called different things. It basically looks at discrimination against people based on age, based on race, based on gender. You want to make sure it also is based on disability and you want to make sure it includes this kind of disability discrimination. Because that's another handle in terms of what you can do. I really, really, really think we have been remiss in the disability community in terms of both the state and now segue into local, in terms of the consolidated plans twice a year to making these political events. And you really want to think cleverly about P. R, about getting the press there -- the press doesn't even know it exists, but if there were 15, 20, 30 people in wheelchairs dressed up as statue of liberties and dressed up as whatever to make it a media event, you know, they'll come out. And you can really then begin the pressure and make it a political media event twice a year about testimonies, about people with disabilities living on second floor and being carried up and down 12 steps. About people living with federally funded through the state agencies or locally, public housing agencies having people with disabilities who have never been on a second floor bathroom because they can't get up there. Or people who have two floor units who bump down eight or ten steps a day so they can get in and out of the units. Those are the stories that have to be told. You know those stories. They come into your centers, they come into your protection advocacy every day. You've got to start collecting them and using them in terms of the strategies for both the state and the local. And the local is equally open. Maybe more so because it's at the local level that it's easier to get people to come out and attend, whether it be the housing authorities one year, three year plan, whether it be the consolidated one year or five-year plan, whether it be using the CDBG money for disability issues, whether it be talking to your area aging on agencies in terms of what money they're getting that should be focused on people with disabilities so that they're dealing with accessibility for people who are both aged and disabled and how are they doing it. A whole bunch much different ways of doing it. You've got to be creative. One of the things we've discovered is unfortunately the press likes stories that have violins in the background. Well, damn it, give it to them. Tell them about the person, but put it in the civil rights context, put it in the discrimination context. Too often the violins are just violins; this kind of sympathy story should be put in the civil rights context. It's not just the violins, it's discrimination. When the housing authority or the recipient of the CDBG doesn't have 5 percent, or doesn't do a reasonable accommodation or builds the apartment so that the father can't get in and out, that's discrimination. And it's a violation of the Section 504. It may be an ADA violation in terms of methods of administration, it might be a Section 504 method of administration. The other thing is media doesn't understand is that recipients get big dollars when you start talking about hundreds and thousands and millions of dollars they've gotten over the years and they are still screwing people with disabilities, that makes their ears pick up. And that's what you should basically be bringing to the light of the public. And those are some of the strategies. I'm going to try to get another strategy booklet out. We've been collecting stuff. I've just been swamped with litigation, but I really mean what I said a little while ago, if you can do it with sugar and honey, it's faster, it's more pleasant. It's less adversarial, and the name of the game is getting to home plate. How you get to home plate -- if you can do it with sugar and honey and partnership, terrific, do it. But if you can't, then it's time the take out the lawyer threats, the litigation, and tell them, hey, we've got brass knuckles in the disability community. We're ready to fight if we have to. This is our civil rights. You guys have to remember that power concedes nothing without a struggle. Questions? I'm worn out. OPERATOR: if you have a question at this time you may press 0, 1 on your telephone key pad. The first question comes from Independence First. Go ahead, please. CALLER: I just wanted to know the name of that second circuit decision that you mentioned in the beginning? STEVE: Sounds like salute -- Salute -- it might be a misspelling, but it was a two to one decision. The dissent was written by former dean of Yale's law school. I can't remember anyone's name anymore I'm embarrassed, and I think if you Google decisions, salute, you will get it. If you do second circuit, Section 8, you'll get it. It was about five or six years ago. CALLER: Thank you. STEVE: I think it came out of Connecticut or New York. I'm not sure. I think there is a way around that now. I think that case -- I would have done that case -- if we were doing that case again for the non lawyers, remember at the beginning I said the question is what about a reasonable accommodation for someone who can't afford something and they had a Section 8 voucher, how do we do it and can we get reasonable accommodations based on income? And I said Salute was terrible. There was the other case -- I think Gabrielle out of the ninth circuit, last year, '03. We have to be a lot more clever than we were with the Salute case five or six years ago. We've got to put it in a different subtext. And I think we can do that now much more creatively than we did six years ago. And I really think a lot of times these cases are lost because we're not thinking like disability lawyers and how to focus it that way. Next question. OPERATOR: the next question comes from Center for Community Access. Go ahead, please. CALLER: Hello this, is Michael, Center for Community Access. Could you tell me, Steve, does HUD consider individuals in nursing homes as homeless? STEVE: the answer is yes. Now, let me tell you, yes when the word HUD is in quotes. We have several letters that have never been published in the code of federal regulations, but we have letters -- I think one was written to the -- someone in ADAPT by the secretary Cuomo. There are two or three documentary evidence reflections that HUD at certain levels does consider it that way. And if you think about it guys, a person who is in an inaccessible home or unit who can't get in and out, who has to bump up and down steps to get in and out, who has to be carried to get in and out, they don't have equal access to their units that a non disabled person has. They are homeless to the extent that where they are living is they cannot use the full extent that a non disabled person can. So it's a two-part answer. I have those things -- I only have them in hard copy. I assume the reason the person is asking me that question is because their local preferences talk about homeless and you've got to then put the disabled person living in an inaccessible unit is the same as homeless. I sort of -- I've done it. I don't feel a teeny bit uncomfortable doing it. If you want, E-mail me at SteveGoldada.com with fax number and I will fax you the two or three documents from HUD that clearly say that. CALLER: Okay, thank you. STEVE: It still may be a fight, but at least you've got something to fight with. Anything more? OPERATOR: No, sir, there are no more questions at this time. STEVE: Are there any more questions on the website? TIM: Yeah, thanks, Steve. I'll start off with this, I've got two here. Could you please repeat your reference to engaging with state health commissioners to strategize on housing access for folks in nursing homes? STEVE: I didn't say health commissioners; I said welfare. Every state is different. Whatever state agency administers is the state agency for medical assistance. Everything has to have a state agency through which the federal funding goes, and the federal funding for medical assistance includes both nursing home reimbursement and the home and community-based waivers services. Well, that person, that secretary, that commissioner, that MA, whatever they are called, has the financial interest in reducing their nursing home costs. If there is a person in there living unnecessarily and wants to get out and in there solely because of a housing need, that commissioner or secretary has a real financial interest to get to whoever is responsible for housing to talk about how they do -- how do they get the housing part of the state agencies, which is not the same as medical assistance, to basically work with and communicate with and get people so that if the secretary of welfare says we have 15 people who are ready to get out but for no Section 8 voucher; but for no low- income housing tax credit renting an accessible unit ready to take them. And if the housing person that's been appointed by the governor or whatever, basically knows that part of his or her job is to help the state save money. This is not like rocket science. This seems like common sense that no one seems to do. Now, one of the problems is it's like the Balkan wars, everybody protects their own turf on the state level. And they historically haven't even talked to each other let alone work together, but your governor should -- will be interested to make sure they are working together because your governor is facing a potential deficit and would like to reduce the nursing home budget and that's the way you get them to do it I think. It's not easy, but it's doable. TIM: All right, Steve, I've got one more. In reference to -- let me see -- if someone is looking at an apartment or other home where they are looking and living at a high level, you know, a high floor and they are worried about the risk of fire, et cetera, there have been occasions when a landlord, home health agency, et cetera, has concerns about the safety of a person with disabilities, particularly in the case of a fire, that person is allowed to take that risk upon themselves. This person is wondering if you could use that same strategy if 504 doesn't apply. Does that make sense? STEVE: It absolutely does. When you say 504 doesn't apply, I assume you mean in a Fair Housing Act covered unit. The answer is sure. It's the same reasonable accommodation. We know, guys, you know that the non disabled world doesn't think that the disabled world should be able to make the same choices and take the same risks as non disabled people. Why did I tell you, Steve Gold, age almost 62 in that high floor unit is going to have the same trouble getting out as someone else and if I'm willing to take that risk then so should they, and moreover, if the apartment house was built properly, there should be a refuge on that floor with where the fire department knows that there is a disabled person in a wheelchair and if God forbid there was a fire, they're going to go to that floor. I want to deal with it on the level of if I'm disabled and I'm ready to take that risk, it's no one's business whether or not -- you know, I don't need that pity. There is a T-shirt, piss on pity, I really think that's true on that one. If the person is ready to take the risk themselves, so be it. And so the answer is yes, under the Fair Housing Act, a reasonable accommodation would apply. Yes. Any more? TIM: Not from me. Michelle, do we have any last questions? OPERATOR: No, sir, we do not. STEVE: Let me now go back to the beginning and conclude it. One of the things I was told is I could have a little more than 90 minutes today and we are 10 minutes over. We're talking affordable, accessible, integrated housing. I didn't talk at all today about segregated -- or Monday about segregated housing where they put all these disabled people in one unit a way from non disabled people and I'm talking about affordable housing for me is mixed income housing. Integrated is with people disabled and non disabled. We're talking about putting a puzzle together that historically has not been disability kind. Has not been thought about in terms of disability context both from the point of view of the people building the puzzle and from us. It's going to be a struggle. It's a struggle I think we can win. It's a struggle that more and more disabled people are getting involved with. I was not at the meeting, but I understand that ADAPT the national strategy meeting in Seattle has agreed that special housing committee for ADAPT has been set up. So I'm sure we'll be seeing some stuff coming out of them. In this area, and it's a struggle. I don't think HUD -- as much as HUD historically -- depending on who the secretary is and the deputy secretary and the local people -- they can remedy this in a snap. Just by the fact they haven't checked out and enforced to monitor the '01 and '02 vouchers recipients, they don't perceive it their business to checkout and monitor the five percent. You guys got to do that. You are the advocates. I don't expect anyone else to do it. Thank you very, very much for having me on. TIM: Thank you, Steve. So we are out of time. That concludes part II, the affordable, accessible, integrated housing teleconference. I want to thank you all for the excellent questions you raised and remind you to please complete your evaluations and return them to the NCIL office. I'd like to thank Steve once again for his time and effort for making this teleconference an incredible success. I thank you all again. Goodbye for now. Steve if you could please stay on the line, I'd appreciate it. STEVE: Sure.