Accessible Housing Austin!

Accessible, Affordable, Integrated Housing in Austin, Texas

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How Housing Policy Is Failing America’s Poor

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Section 8 was intended to help people escape poverty, but instead it’s trapping them in it.


A painting by a second-grade class in an Austin apartment where Section 8 vouchers are accepte

When a woman in McKinney, Texas, told Tatiana Rhodes and her friends to “go back to your Section 8 homes” at a public pool earlier this month, she inadvertently spoke volumes about the failure of a program that was designed to help America’s poor.

Created by Congress in 1974, the “Section 8” Housing Choice Voucher Program was supposed to help families move out of broken urban neighborhoods to places where they could live without the constant threat of violence and their kids could attend good schools.

But somewhere along the way, “Section 8” became a colloquialism for housing that is, to many, indistinguishable from the public-housing properties the program was designed to help families escape.

Read the rest on The Atlantic

Accessible Housing Austin!

Accessible Housing Austin! was founded in 2005 by disability rights advocates who recognized that the scarcity of housing was a critical issue for people with disabilities.

Accessible Housing Austin! serves a diverse range of Austinites with disabilities, including adults and children with mobility impairments, visual impairment, chronic illness, and other physical and emotional disabilities.

AHA! is the only housing non-profit in Austin led by members of the disability community. 

Our mission is to provide affordable, accessible, integrated housing for low-income people with disabilities.

click images for a larger view AHA! at Briarcliff

AHA!’s scattered-site model allows our tenants be part of a neighborhood. Living in higher opportunity neighborhoods, they have access to shopping and public transportation; adults are close to community college, and children are close to good schools.

Our tenants actively participate in the life of the community: their children make friends with other children and their families enjoy neighborhood block parties.

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MISSION STATEMENT

AHA! (Accessible Housing Austin) believes that we all deserve to live in homes that are not only safe and decent, but that allow us to exercise our rights to independence and dignity, that we can afford, and that allow our families to participate in our neighborhoods. For AHA!, the home is supported by three pillars: Accessibility, Affordability, and Integration.

Affordability

Affordability = Security and Stability

Our tenants are primarily people with disabilities who would otherwise be priced out of the current housing market or forced to live in institutions. Our housing alleviates the negative effects of poverty and removes uncertainty; our tenants pay rent that is proportional to their incomes, and AHA! accepts rental assistance vouchers (Housing Choice, Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, etc).

AHA! at Briarcliff is Underway!

Thirty-six percent of renters in Austin are cost-burdened by increasing rents. The median rent in Austin is $1,434 for a two-bedroom apartment. AHA! at Briarcliff seeks to address this by offering affordable, one and two-bedroom units for low-income families. Expected rents range from $430 – $1,121 per month.