The lack of affordable, accessible, integrated housing remains one of the most significant barriers to people with disabilities who want to leave institutions and transition to community living. If you do not have a place where you can live, you are unable to get community-based services and live in the community.
People with disabilities in Colorado and across the United States are forced into institutions, like nursing facilities, due to the lack of housing which meets their needs for permanence, accessibility, affordability, and integration. In Colorado and many states, housing problems are one of the primary reasons that people with disabilities, of all ages, are forced into unwanted institutionalization.
Colorado has taken steps to address this through the creation of Community Choice Transition vouchers, however this program was underfunded and due to high rental costs, its budget was unable to support the full number of vouchers.
Failure to ensure access to affordable, accessible and integrated housing has resulted in elderly and Disabled Coloradans being denied their most fundamental rights to Life, Liberty and Freedom through unwanted institutionalization.
ADAPT demands that the Colorado Division of Housing:
- Publicly endorse an immediate increase in funding for the Community Choice Transition vouchers, fully funding the existing 225 vouchers to allow Coloradans with disabilities to secure the housing needed to return to community; and
- Increase the 504 accessibility requirements for multi-family housing that is built with federal funds so that 10% of that housing is accessible for people with mobility disabilities and 4% is accessible for people with sensory disabilities.