Earlier this week, the Technical Assistance Collaborative and the Consortium for Citizens With Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force released an important report showing the huge difficulties faced by people with disabilities including mental illness in getting affordable rental housing. The report, Priced Out in 2014, compares Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to fair market rents in housing markets across the country. A fairly obvious point made for anyone who relies on SSI for basic needs or has family members that do–nowhere in America are SSI benefits enough to rent your own apartment.
Along with the report, they released a fact sheet with these key findings:
The average annual income of a single individual receiving SSI payments was $8,995 — equal to only 20.1% of the national median income for a one-person household and about 23% below the 2014 federal poverty level.
The national average rent for a modest one-bedroom rental unit was $780, equal to 104% of the national average monthly income of a one-person SSI household. This finding confirms that, in 2014, it was virtually impossible for a single adult receiving SSI to obtain decent and safe housing in the community without some type of rental assistance.
https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/June-2015/New-Report-Shows-Challenges-Facing-People-With-Ser