I would ask everyone in the notes making “Just get married” jokes to pay attention to the fact that the person who tweeted this has a wheelchair emoji in their name and remember the fact that people on social security disability payments lose all their benefits the instant they get married.
A rule like this will fully back disabled people on SSI into an ultimatum of stay single and get evicted or marry and become unable to pay the rent anyway.
This is such a great point. We all need to be mindful of how a lot of these laws are used for ableism. There are so many things we do that we don’t know we’re doing that was put in place to actively harm the disabled community. Like the way a lot of jobs require you to be able to lift 50 pounds even though it has nothing to do with the job.
[Image description: Tweet by user @/birkmurkrow that reads: “I’M NOT SORRY BUT HOW THE FUCK ARE Y'ALL GONNA BAN PEOPLE LIVING TOGETHER. PEOPLE. LIVING. TOGETHER. im gonna throw up”
Attached to the tweet there’s a picture of a newspaper page. Its title reads: “Shawnee unanimously passes ordinance banning co-living by Aarón Torres”
The article reads: “On Monday, a Johnson County city unanimously voted to ban a living arrangement aimed at helping tennants decrease the amount of rent they pay.
The Shawnee City Counsil voted 8-0 to ban co-living, becoming among the first Kansas City area municipalities to prevent the practice, which has gained popularity in recent years as rent and home prices have soared.
The new ordinance defines a co-living group as as a group of at least four unrelated adults living together in a dwelling unit. The ordinance stated that if one adult is unrelated to another adult, then the entire group will be classified as unrelated. The practice, which includes things like sharing a kitchen, living room and community areas, started to gain popularity as a rental and housing prices continued to increase across the United States.
“Co-living has become increasingly popular because of its cost effectiveness and greater flexibility in cities where rents are high for young professionals,” The Washington Post wrote in 2019.
The City Council’s vote came despite a presentation from a Johnson County organization where a housing study showed that the average home price in the county rose 37% from 2017-2021, climbing from $324,393 to $443,700. The study showed that wages did not rise at that same rate.
“Shawnee is one of the three largest communities in Johnson County, so what happens in Shawnee is really consequential for what happens to the rest of the county,” said Kristy Baughman, director of education and planning for United Community Services of Johnson County.
Baughman said that the organization received a grant in 2017 from the Kansas Healthcare Foundation, which was part of a healthy communities initiative. The task was to identify a health equity issue, she said.
“Over and over again, what rose to the surface was the cost of housing was the thing that was impacting people’s ability to be healthy,” Baughman said.“
