TEMPE, Arizona -- The United States government has three important functions. Collecting taxpayer money, building housing for Deaf seniors and making housing for Deaf seniors illegal.
his is a true story of how the government fulfilled two of its main functions at the same time by building and banning housing for Deaf seniors.
Arizona is defying a federal order to eliminate apartments for Deaf seniors at a housing complex built specifically for the Deaf.
A 2005 federal study found that the U.S. had virtually no affordable housing for the Deaf. So the federal government helped build Apache ASL Trails, a 75-unit apartment building in Tempe, Arizona., designed specifically for the Deaf. Ninety-percent of the units are currently occupied by Deaf and Deaf-Blind seniors.
But now, the federal The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says Apache ASL Trails violates civil rights law because it shows a preference for the hearing-impaired.
HUD is threatening to pull all federal housing aid to Arizona unless it limits the number of hearing-impaired residents to 18 people.
However, when HUD approved and helped fund the project in 2008, it did so knowing that the property was specifically “designed for seniors who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Deaf-Blind.”... Read The Fully Story.
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