Summary: The mentally disabled occupy about 9 percent of the public housing units for the elderly that GAO studied, and the number of such individuals housed among the elderly appears to be on the rise. Public housing authorities report that people in almost one-third of those households cause serious problems like threatening other tenants and having disruptive visitors. Although about 78 percent of public housing authorities say that mental health services are provided in their communities, the extent to which public housing residents avail themselves of such services is unclear. Agreements between public housing authorities and local mental health services, however, have helped to deliver needed mental health care to public housing residents with disabilities. The rights of the mentally disabled to live in federally subsidized housing primarily serving the elderly vary by federal program. Excluding the nonelderly mentally ill from public housing for the elderly or from section 8 rental housing would violate the antidiscrimination requirements of the Fair Housing Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
