OHFA Annual Plan - Ohio Housing Finance Agency

For this reason, in some communities, accessible units remain vacant. This reinforces themisperception that those who are in need of affordable and accessible housing units arebeing accommodated.The concluding paragraph of the JAPA report summarizes the issue quite well: “The needs ofan aging population, combined with concerns about the civil rights of people with disabilitiesand the high cost of nursing home care, make the lack of accessible housing a critical issuefor planners and policy makers… Given the slow pace at which changes in the housingstock occur, there is an urgency to act now. Increasing the supply of accessible housing willbenefit not only currently disabled people, but also their families and friends, those whobecome disabled in the future, and society as a whole.”RecommendationsThe following recommendations were developed from the data collected, analysis ofbest practices in Ohio and other states, and the expertise of the workgroup participants.Recommendations are organized as five broad categories (in bold). The subrecommendationsare the strategies for implementation. The group consensus is that thesesub-recommendations should not be separated from the broad categories.1) Develop ways to identify existing accessible housing units and endeavor to fillthose units with people who will benefit from the accessibility features.a) Recommend that a data depository be created by OHFA to consolidate all of thedisparate public and private accessible housing data across the state.b) Require that all publicly funded accessible units be listed in statewide and local housinglocator databases.c) OHFA will continue to maintain a list of agencies/organizations that provide servicesto those in need of accessible housing. Applicants for OHFA funding must notify theappropriate agency at the time of application that accessible housing is being proposed,agree to accept referrals for potential residents, and agree to receive design suggestionsfor the property.2) Increase the number of affordable, accessible, adaptable and visitable units inOhio.a) OHFA will continue to require that all new construction funded by the agency will bevisitable.b) OHFA will continue to require universal design features in all OHFA fundeddevelopments.c) Recommend that a group comprised of representatives from the building industry,state agencies for whom affordable housing is part of their mission and disabilityadvocacy groups explore incentives to builders and developers that will encourage thedevelopment of units with accessibility features over and above those required by law.d) OHFA will support a consistent definition of visitability in order to simplify the processfor those who build affordable housing in various localities across the state. Thisuniformity and direction will encourage builders to incorporate those elements into theirprojects that they choose to make visitable.e) OHFA shall audit their internal processes to insure proper tracking of developercompliance with agreed upon accessibility features. This includes review ofdocumentation before construction as well as post construction reviews.19