Doreen Cummings is the Director of Services for Mainstay Supportive Housing. This series explores different topics related to finding the right supportive housing for your loved one with intellectual or developmental disabilities. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s start off by talking about how a Section 8 housing voucher can benefit a person who has intellectual or developmental disabilities.
One of the first things I talk to families about is to make sure that they tackle the right benefits as soon as they possibly can. Sometimes those things get missed in the school system as they’re focused on academics. That milestone of turning 18 is really important. One of the first applications to think about is the mobile Section 8 voucher list, which is a 10-year wait for folks because you’re really competing with everybody else that’s in that bucket of trying to get a mobile voucher. So, getting on that list at 18 and moving out at 28 doesn’t seem so unusual. But sometimes I run into families who haven’t gotten on the list, and the children are 40 or 50. But even then, I would say that it’s really important to get on the list.
Are there any common myths about Section 8 housing vouchers that you think are important to dispel?
Talking to families for all these years, and walking families through the process, I definitely hear things like, ‘Well, I don’t want my child to live in the projects of the town that offers the Section 8 vouchers or offers low-income housing.’ They don’t understand that really, you can use a mobile voucher anywhere in the United States and including Puerto Rico. If you can, get that golden ticket – after waiting for 10 years to get it – I definitely feel like some families have mistakenly turned it away, not thinking of every creative option they can make. Some families that happen to have a larger house, or want to buy a larger house, or do a two-family house can use the vouchers in that way.
Make sure you’re asking someone that knows before you’re turning away any type of service or if you’re thinking, ‘Well, my child is too disabled or has too many needs and they’ll never be able to use them in an apartment setting.’ There are different, unique ways that folks are using these vouchers—like in our setting, with larger congregate settings. It is really valuable in those settings cutting private-pay costs tremendously. And it’s a voucher, a benefit that lasts you a lifetime.
One of the things that apparently causes some confusion is who should be put down as head of household when applying for a Section 8 housing voucher. What can you tell us about that?
A lot of families can’t imagine their child not being in their care. They think that they’re not independent in that way. It’s a really hard transition to see your loved one, who really relies on you for everything, be independent when they turn 18. Head of household is one thing that families get confused about – because your child is applying for a voucher as if they are the head of household, even though they are living at home with the family at age 18.
How does the parents’ income impact the child’s ability to qualify? Or does it?
It doesn’t impact their ability to qualify. Because they are 18, it is about their income, how much they’re making. And generally, the formula is that the person is getting Social Security, even if they have a part-time job. So, if they’re getting $800 or $900 in Social Security, that’s the income the Housing Authority looks at and determines 30 percent will be put towards rent, and then the Housing Authority will kick in the rest.
Any other tips and tricks that you recommend for people applying?
My biggest tip is, don’t wait. As soon as your loved one turns 18, make sure you get on that housing list. Don’t wait until they’re 22.
This is a one-pager. Fill it out and march it down to your local Housing Authority. Then get to know the person there. Make sure you call once a year to check where you are on the list. They generally won’t give you a number of where you stand on the list, but they may be able to say at least, ‘Yes, you’re still on the list. You’re active.’
Make sure that you’re taking it seriously. It’s not a lot of labor to make sure that you’re still on the list. Checking it annually, again taking a ride to your local Housing Authority is definitely something that you can do. Also, a lot of towns use the centralized waiting list, where then they all coordinate who gets the next voucher.
Quickly, I’ll talk about two programs that we have under the Mainstay umbrella of housing model. We have one house in Norwood called the Yellow House, and we have one house in Malden called Cedar House. These houses were very creatively designed by their landlords to work with the Housing Authority at initiation and added project-based Section 8 housing vouchers to the rooms in the building. You have to live there for one year and then you can apply for a mobile Section 8 voucher. It’s kind of a short cut. We’ve seen families use it as a strategy, as a stepping stone, where maybe they want their loved ones to move out of their family home into a setting where they can kind of learn how to live independently a little bit, with the ultimate goal that in one or two years they will live in their own apartment. We’ve seen that really work out well for folks in that category, where Mainstay is sort of a transitional service. But using a Section 8 voucher is a short cut.
To learn more, please visit our website, or contact Doreen directly at Doreen.Cummings@mainstayliving.org.
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