News

TAC's Marti Knisley was recently appointed to serve on an Expert Panel for a new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) study that seeks to better understand rental housing discrimination against people with mental disabilities. HUD is undertaking the effort to increase its understanding of housing discrimination in the rental market on the basis of mental disability, including the forms and prevalence of such housing discrimination. While most housing discrimination research to date has focused on the prevalence of housing discrimination based on race, the number of housing discrimination complaints on the basis of disability has grown making it the most common basis for housing discrimination complaints. In FY 2010, disability complaints made up 48% of the total number of fair housing complaints filed with HUD and its partner state and local Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) agencies, and 40% of the disability complaints involved mental disabilities including people with mental illnesses and intellectual/developmental disabilities. Ms. Knisley will join nine other experts on housing issues faced by individuals with mental disabilities to advise HUD and its study team on the methodology and overall study approach.