Weaknesses in the Planning and Utilization of Rental Housing for Persons in Wheelchairs

GAO reviewed Federal efforts to provide housing designed especially for the needs of people who use wheelchairs to determine whether the Departments of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) goals to produce wheelchair-accessible housing units were reasonable and being complied with and if people in wheelchairs were occupying the special housing units.

Housing units produced under HUD and Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) programs and designed especially for people who use wheelchairs are not being produced efficiently or rented primarily to wheelchair users. A GAO review showed that only 27 percent of the units were occupied by persons using wheelchairs. The HUD and FmHA goals for constructing these units were based on inadequate data. The agencies did not have the essential data needed to establish and evaluate policies relating to housing people who use wheelchairs such as: the total number of accessible units in existence under their programs, the number of people using wheelchairs who occupy the units, and the people's characteristics such as their age and income. There was limited occupancy of accessible units by wheelchair users because the agencies do not require accessible units to be occupied by people using wheelchairs, project sponsors do not always have effective outreach programs to advertise the availability of accessible units and rental assistance projects do not often have services such as personal attendant care which people in wheelchairs may need to live independently, and projects have restrictions based on age or ability to live independently which preclude certain people from living in them. Almost no coordination exists between HUD, FmHA, and Federal, State, and local organizations providing services to people in wheelchairs living in HUD or FmHA assisted housing projects.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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