It’s been all over the headlines. Banks are in crisis. The extraordinary number of home foreclosures and bankruptcies are bringing massive financial institutions that have operated for a century or more to their knees. Stocks that were worth $70+ per share can now be purchased for pennies.

It’s a crisis in need of a hero… and the government is stepping up to save the day.

People with disabilities have a housing crisis, too. We have far too few housing options. There is not enough housing that is accessible for people with mobility limitations. There is not enough housing that is affordable to people with extremely low incomes. And there is not enough housing that is integrated in the community, so people with disabilities can have a real life, instead of living in a facility or group home and depending on the whims of staff to be able to simply go for a walk down the block.

Our housing crisis is not caused by our own shady and questionable lending practices. Ours is not caused by our own efforts to rake in huge profits on unacceptably risky investments. Ours really is no fault of our own at all. Our crisis is caused by a housing system that has ignored our needs for many decades. The crisis is swelling because more people with disabilities are able to get the home care and services needed to live in the community. It’s also swelling because our country is aging and seniors have almost exactly the same housing needs and younger people with disabilities.

Take a situation where there was not enough of something to begin with. Then add to it two new large populations that are competing for the same limited resource. Now, understand that we’re in competition for one of the most basic and essential human needs – shelter. This has all the makings of a crisis. It is a crisis.

It’s a crisis in need of a hero… and the government is ignoring us.

When activists from ADAPT took our housing message to Washington, DC, this week, they were met with lip service at best, and harsh arrests at worst. The Democratic National Committee and even representative from HUD itself met with ADAPT. They expressed interest in ADAPT’s Housing Platform (http://www.duhcity.org/press/DUHPlatform.pdf ) and said things like, “We’ll review it and try to incorporate some of these points.” Ok, how nice?

At the National Headquarters of the McCain-Palin campaign, staff would not even accept the platform to look at. This ultimately led to the arrest of 11 people. At the office of Congressman Barney Frank, chair of the House Committee that deals with Housing, 15 ADAPT members were arrested. At the office of Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking minority member on the Senate’s housing committee, there were arrests. And finally, at the office of Senator Chris Dodd, despite conversation with a staff person from the banking committee, 19 ADAPTers were arrested.

Let’s compare…

The Mortgage Industry is in crisis. The Federal government pumps in hundreds of billions of dollars and the government, on behalf of we the taxpayers, assumes responsibility for trillions of dollars of debt.

People with disabilities are in crisis. The Federal government listens politely for a little while and then has us arrested when we won’t go away.
Our housing crisis won’t go away without serious action by our elected leaders. We won’t go away until that action has been taken. Whoever the victor is in the upcoming election needs to be ready and willing to work with people with disabilities to solve our housing crisis.