HUD and HHS Announce Community Living Partnership
Earlier today, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a joint effort to help nearly 1,000 non-elderly Americans with disabilities transition from facilities and live independently, marking the first interagency collaboration to provide this population with a combination of rental assistance, health care, and other supportive services. This partnership is in response to the Obama Administration’s Community Living Initiative, launched in 2009 to reaffirm the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the Court ruled that the unnecessary institutionalization of an individual with a disability able to live in the community with the proper supports constitutes discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). More information about the Community Living Initiative is available here.
To further this federal collaboration, HUD is providing $7.5 million in rental assistance vouchers through the Rental Assistance for Non-Elderly Persons with Disabilities Program, and public housing authorities in 15 states will administer the rental subsidies. A breakdown of the funding announced today is available here. State Medicaid agencies and local human service organizations will link eligible families to local public housing authorities that will administer voucher distribution, and HHS and HUD have launched the Housing Capacity Building Initiative for Community Living Project to improve coordination between these entities; more details on this project are available here.
The HUD vouchers will complement the work already being done by the CMS-administered Money Follows the Person (MFP) grant program, as individuals receiving this rental assistance will also receive health and social supports through MPF. Currently, 29 states and D.C. are participating in the MFP program, and CMS is expecting a new round of grant applications on January 7, 2011. However, in places where the MFP program is not available, the necessary services will be provided by a comparable state-sponsored institutional transitional program. For more information about the MFP program, please visit www.cms.gov, or click here.
To view the press release in its entirety, and to access any of the links, please visit: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/01/20110106a.html.