Able News Column February 2025 – Disabled People Have a Right to Shelter
In typical DRA style, we’re ringing in 2025 with a bang—tackling one of the most critical and pressing issues of our time: affordable accessible housing for people with disabilities. I have heard about this issue from so many of you in the community. There is not enough accessible housing. The accessible housing that does exist is generally not affordable. People with disabilities who cannot afford housing are being denied their basic civil rights by municipalities across the nation.
I personally have never been able to live in a rent-controlled apartment because of my need for wheelchair-accessible housing. Any increases in my salary, which thankfully as an attorney I did receive, went directly to pay for my annual rent increase. But so many people in our community do not have jobs that can cover the rising costs of housing. And this problem has exacerbated exponentially in recent years.
According to a report issued by the Urban Institute and The Kelsey in 2022, 1 in 5 disabled people had extremely low income, yet, only 16 percent received any housing assistance. This means that roughly 18 million people, though eligible, did not receive housing assistance. And these folks are disproportionately racially and ethnically diverse. Twenty-four percent of eligible disabled individuals with extremely low incomes are Black and 17 percent are Latino.
Disabled people, especially disabled people of color, continue to face a housing crisis, and DRA has been tackling this issue from multiple legal angles in California in recent years. Here is a sampling of our recent housing-related cases, all aimed at protecting people with disabilities’ basic civil rights to shelter:
- In 2019, DRA filed a class action lawsuit alleging that people with disabilities are illegally excluded from Oakland’s rent stabilization program, known as “rent control.”
- In 2021, on behalf of Pacifica residents with disabilities who live in RVs, DRA filed a class action lawsuit to strike down a law that bans RV parking within city limits. This case settled in 2022, altering the ban to allow RV parking on two miles of city streets and providing for an on-street safe parking program administered by a local nonprofit which has since helped many people in the program, including Sean Geary, our lead plaintiff, to obtain permanent housing.
- DRA also filed a similar class action in 2021 on behalf of unhoused Mountain View residents with disabilities living in their RVs. That case settled in 2023 with relief for the class including at least three miles of available parking and other protections.
- In 2023, DRA initiated legal action to prevent the City of Berkeley from evicting unhoused Berkeley residents until there are sufficient provisions of shelter, housing, or alternative accommodations that take into consideration their disability-related needs.
- In 2024, DRA secured a landmark class action settlement that protects San Diego residents with disabilities who rely on their vehicles as their only form of shelter from unjust enforcement and fines.
And, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year, we, along with two public interest law firms—Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC and Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC—filed another righteous, mass case to protect the housing rights of people with disabilities, this time in Chicago, against more than 100 real estate agents, brokerage firms, and landlords for rampant housing discrimination. DRA represents Housing Rights Initiative (HRI), a housing watchdog group whose sweeping undercover investigation found discrimination and clear violations of the law by real estate companies against families with Housing Choice Vouchers (“Section 8”) in the greater Chicago area. Housing Choice Vouchers provide a critical safety net for families whose income is 50% of the median area income.
In 2022, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed HB 2775, making it illegal for landlords, brokers, and agents to discriminate against housing applicants based on their source of income, like Housing Choice Vouchers or Social Security Disability Insurance. This should have been a game-changer for the affordable accessible housing crisis, but more than two years later, HRI’s investigation found that time and time again, landlords would not accept tenants who relied on Section 8 financial assistance to pay rent. This refusal to let families use safety net programs like Section 8 only exacerbates the affordable accessible housing crisis.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” People with disabilities seeking housing experience systemic discrimination on a daily basis in Chicago and around the country. We cannot stand for this unequal treatment. The goal of this latest filing is to get these Chicago real estate companies to stop their discriminatory housing practices, and, as with all DRA cases, to set a precedent that will make it easier to bring equity and housing security to the millions of people with disabilities who so badly need it nationwide.
As always, you can learn more about this case and DRA by visiting our website: www.dralegal.org.