Special Purpose Voucher Programs for People With Disabilities: How They’ve Evolved, What We’ve Learned, and Where We’re Headed

Lisa Sloane
Liz Stewart
Kevin Martone
Technical Assistance Collaborative

From 1961 to 1992, both older adults and younger persons with disabilities were eligible for most federally funded “elderly” housing. By the 1980s, these “mixed populations” occupancy policies had become controversial. In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that allowed public housing agencies (PHAs) and certain types of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-assisted properties to change their occupancy policies to limit the number of units in “elderly” housing that adults with disabilities aged 18 to 61 could occupy, or even to exclude this population altogether. To compensate for this loss of access to housing, in 1996, Congress began to appropriate Special Purpose Vouchers—Mainstream (MS) and Non-Elderly Disabled (NED) vouchers—specifically targeting adults with disabilities aged 18 to 61.