President Signs Legislation Providing $73 Million for Innovative Supportive Housing Initiative in Louisiana
June 30, 2008
Contact: Ann O’Hara, 617-266-5657 ext. 114
Supportive housing advocates from Louisiana and across the country are celebrating legislation enacted today which provides $73 million in federal rental subsidies for the State of Louisiana’s Permanent Supportive Housing Initiative. Today’s victory is the culmination of a sustained advocacy campaign which began in early 2006 when Louisiana state officials, homeless and disability advocates first adopted the goal to create 3,000 units of permanent supportive housing for the most vulnerable people affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“We are extremely pleased that the federal government has responded to the needs of the lowest income people with disabilities in Louisiana who are either homeless or living in other untenable housing circumstances” said Ann O’Hara, Associate Director of the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC), a Boston-based non-profit organization. TAC received multi-year grants from the Melville Charitable Trust other leading foundations to support the development of Louisiana’s permanent supportive housing strategy.
Because of the many high priority needs identified in Louisiana after the storms, it took more than two years for advocates to convince the federal government to provide the rental subsidy funding. People who qualify for supportive housing have extremely low incomes and the permanent federal rental subsidies – as well as sustainable supportive services funding – are essential to make it work. The state has already allocated $72 million in recovery funding to provide the supportive services
Five Louisiana state agencies – the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, the Office of Community Development, the Department of Health and Hospitals, and the Department of Social Services – worked in partnership with UNITY of Greater New Orleans and other Louisiana homeless and disability advocates to design the 3,000 unit program, which includes affordable rental apartments linked with community-based services.
Using federal tax credits and other recovery funding, the first 1,000 supportive housing units are already in development across the Louisiana Gulf Coast and – in early 2008 – displaced families began moving in to the first units ready for occupancy. These families include people with multiple disabilities who were homeless before Katrina, people with disabilities evicted from contaminated FEMA trailers, and multi-generational families with disabilities who were homeless or displaced after Katrina and have now been reunited. The state arranged for temporary rent subsidies until the permanent rental subsidies were appropriated by Congress – an effort led by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
Louisiana has already received national attention for its integrated supportive housing approach which incorporates a small number of supportive units in every new affordable rental housing property financed through the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. Louisiana’s program targets a broad spectrum of people with disabilities who can benefit from supportive housing including chronically homeless people, people at-risk of homelessness, as well as people unnecessarily institutionalized or at-risk of institutionalization.
Congress is currently considering federal supportive housing legislation that could replicate important aspects of the Louisiana approach on a national scale.
