America has spent years talking about the housing crisis in terms of supply and price. But for millions of Americans with disabilities, those measures tell only part of the story. In 2023, 3.14 million very-low-income renter households included someone under 62 with a reported disability, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Of those households, 1.16 million were experiencing what HUD defines as “worst case housing needs,” meaning they faced severe rent burdens, severely inadequate housing, or both without government housing assistance.
The physical supply is just as troubling. A 2015 HUD analysis using 2011 housing data estimated that roughly 4 percent of homes were livable for people with moderate mobility difficulties, and only a fraction of 1 percent were wheelchair accessible. These numbers should force us to reconsider what we mean when we call housing “affordable.”
Leadership Insights
A home is not truly affordable if a person cannot enter it, navigate it, receive the support they need there, or remain connected to the community around them.
A Home Is Not Enough, It Must be Livable
I have spent much of my career working with people whose housing needs cannot be reduced to a rent payment and four walls. As co-founder and CEO of Individual Advocacy Group, I have seen how deeply housing affects every other part of a person’s life. For the adults we support, a home is not simply where someone sleeps. It is where they develop routines, build relationships, pursue employment, participate in their communities and exercise autonomy.
That is why I believe our housing conversation is missing something fundamental. We count units. We calculate rents. We measure supply. But we do not always ask whether the person who needs that housing can actually live there successfully.
The national shortage makes the problem harder. Realtor.com’s 2026 Housing Supply Gap Report estimated that the United States was short of approximately 4.03 million homes in 2025. But adding more units alone will not solve the housing problem for people with disabilities if those units remain inaccessible or disconnected from the support systems people depend on.
Accessibility is also much broader than a ramp or a wider doorway.
Someone with a physical disability may need a zero-step entrance, an accessible bathroom or enough space to maneuver a wheelchair. Someone with an intellectual, developmental, behavioral, neurological or psychiatric disability may have entirely different requirements.
They may need predictable routines, appropriate sensory environments, supervision, communication support, transportation access or proximity to people and services that help them live independently.
A home can meet a building standard and still fail the person who lives in it.
Additional Costs Start To Mount
This distinction becomes particularly important when housing and care are intertwined. For people with complex support needs, finding an apartment is rarely the end of the process. The individual may also need trained staff, case management, behavioral support, vocational assistance or other community-based supports to make independent or supported living possible.
That reality has also shaped the work of Individual Advocacy Group, which has supported adults with intellectual, developmental, behavioral, emotional, and neurological disabilities since 1995. Its supports include residential support, advocacy, case management, vocational assistance, life-skills development, and behavioral health support.
A person needs a place where they can establish stability before they can fully build the rest of their life. As I often say, “A person’s home is the foundation from which they can develop their life.”
Nonprofits Trying to Bridge the Fundraising Gap
But the financial equation can make that foundation extraordinarily difficult to build.
Some of the people we support rely on limited Social Security income, while rents in the communities where supports are provided can exceed what an individual can reasonably afford. Medicaid waiver programs can help fund essential services and supports, but federal Medicaid rules generally do not allow HCBS waiver funds to pay for ordinary room and board.
That creates a gap between being eligible for support and being able to afford the place where that support must be delivered.
Nonprofits are then left trying to bridge that gap through fundraising, grants, subsidies and partnerships with landlords. Those resources can make an enormous difference, but they are not a substitute for a housing system designed around the people who need it.
The consequences extend beyond an organization’s balance sheet.
Having To Make Impossible Choices
When an affordable, appropriate home cannot be found, families can be forced to make impossible choices. Aging parents may continue providing housing and care for adult children long after they expected to do so.
People can remain in environments that are not suited to their needs. Others may face institutional settings or placements far from the communities where they have built relationships.
And when someone is moved away from their community, we lose more than a housing unit.
We can lose a job, a friendship, a familiar neighborhood, a volunteer role, a relationship with local businesses and the everyday opportunities that make someone feel that they belong.
That is why I believe community has to become part of our definition of housing.
Housing and Community Closely Connected
A successful home should allow a person to participate in the life around them. It should create opportunities rather than simply provide shelter. For someone with disabilities, that may mean being close to transportation, employment, family, medical care, social activities or the support professionals they rely on.
We need to rethink what we are measuring.
If policymakers report how many affordable units were created, they should also ask how many are accessible. If developers measure the number of units they deliver, they should consider whether those homes accommodate different physical and cognitive needs.
If communities expand housing supply, they should consider whether people with disabilities can remain connected to the neighborhoods where their lives already exist.
Affordable for Whom?
And when we talk about affordability, we should ask an even more basic question: affordable for whom?
A $900 monthly rent may look affordable compared with a $1,500 apartment, but not if the person earning $900 cannot pay it. A unit may technically be available, but not if the person who needs it cannot navigate the bathroom. A home may be physically accessible, but not if the resident cannot access the support services necessary to remain there.
Housing policy cannot solve those problems by counting units alone.
We need a broader definition of what makes a home successful: affordability, accessibility, appropriate support, stability and community connection.
Until we redefine “affordable” to include those realities, we will continue building housing systems that look successful on paper while leaving some of the people who need them most behind.
A home should be more than a unit at a price someone can theoretically pay. It should be a place where a person can live, participate, contribute and belong. That is the standard we should be building toward.
Charlene Bennett is co-founder and chief executive of Individual Advocacy Group, which provides residential, case-management, vocational and community-based services for adults with intellectual, developmental, behavioral and neurological disabilities in Illinois, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
The views expressed are the author’s own.
