SO MANY PEOLE ON SSI Disability Benefits

[Charlie Bognar]

Anybody figured out how to help them?...and help each other?
I was thinking to buy this mobile home ( 5000,- /needs 2000,- or 3000,-/ lot rent 352,-/trash 13,-/water 75,-, taxes 25, I think no insurance, because seller was hesitating talking about it )

It has a tenant : The ordinary SSI payment in 2015, without any reductions for income or additions for a state supplement, is $733

For me to fix it up I would have to raise the rent. I was thinking 666. And leave the tenant on less then 100 dollars a month.

I am facing several problems and if anything, at least I would like to find somebody I can talk to about this.

55+ comunities?...can I buy a property there and rent it out?...I did not find a specific answer to that, place to place different, different rules, different rent etc.
Not everybody on 773,- is 55+. Do they get some help ( housing support) or I am missing something?

Does anybody has experience in this department ( this kind of tenants ) 

Thank You

[Jeffrey H.]

At a high level the numbers do not work at all for you to do this deal.

Additionally raising the rent on folks with a fixed income is usually met with a lot of resistance.  If this tenant has no other income except the SSI then it doesn't sound like they will be in a good situation with only $100 / month to live on.  This tenant would need to consider other benefit programs they may be eligible, and I don't think that's your role here.  There is no additional assistance for housing with the SSI Program :

https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-living-ussi.htm

So now onto the economics - affordable housing with a $352 lot rent is not affordable enough for people only collecting $733 per month.  Generally rent should be about 30% of income (but the % could be different for people on SSI), which means this person's rent should be near $232 per month (all inclusive, not just lot rent!) - the leftovers are for utilities, car, groceries, phone, whatever else in their life. To put this in context in Florida minimum wage is $8.05 per hour. If someone works 40 hours per week flipping burgers then they will get $1,288 per month gross income pre-tax. You're talking about trying to make money off someone who's income is less than 60% of that.

I can appreciate you're looking at a larger systemic problem and seeing how you can address it with affordable housing. If you're really set on this model then you need to focus on other Parks with a lower lot rent, and even then it might not work.  They would have to live in a Park with like $100 lot rent and even then you won't make any money.

Finally, each Park has their own rules whether it can be sublet - you will need to check with the Manager to understand this prior to purchase. In most 55+ nicer communities the answer is usually, "no, you cannot sublet."