Bush Budget Proposes Halt in Housing Aid for Disabled

From the New York Times (reg required to access full article)

With little fanfare, the Bush administration is proposing to stop financing the construction of new housing for the mentally ill and physically handicapped as part of a 50 percent cut in its housing budget for people with disabilities.

The proposal, which has been overshadowed by the administration's plans to shrink its community development programs, affects what is known as the Section 811 program. Since 1998, Section 811 has helped nonprofit developers produce more than 11,000 units of housing for low-income people with disabilities, including more than 700 in New York State.

But the proposal appears to comport with the administration's broader determination to trim domestic programs in the face of record deficits.

This time, the federal government would discontinue financing housing for people with spinal cord injuries or psychiatric illnesses who are not necessarily homeless but may live in nursing homes or psychiatric hospitals.

By relying exclusively on vouchers, the federal government would essentially be lumping these people with able-bodied Section 8 recipients in competing for some of the same apartments.

"What you have for disabled folks is you're getting a double whammy," said Jonathan Harwitz, director of public policy for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which promotes housing for people with special needs. "You're looking at both the landlord making a decision, 'Do I even want to rely on Section 8?' and secondly, saying, 'Do I want a disabled person in here?' Because that's an additional issue."
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PREDICTION: You think the "homeslessness" problem is bad now? You think the prisons are crowded now? Just wait five years. Don't forget that in October 2003 Human Rights Watch already criticized the United States for putting the mentally ill in prisons:

One in six U.S. prisoners is mentally ill. Many of them suffer from serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals.

The rate of mental illness in the prison population is three times higher than in the general population. “Prisons have become the nation’s primary mental health facilities,” said Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S. Program and a co-author of the report. “But for those with serious illnesses, prison can be the worst place to be.”

That dangrous, blurry line between criminality and illness, between punishment and treatment, between a civilized society and one in which every man is for himself, blurs just a bit more.