2007 Money Follows the Person Grants and Housing

Dear JFA Readers:

Below is an analysis of the newly announced "Money Follows the 
Person Demonstration Grants to States." A teleconference call 
on this is scheduled for August 22. More information on this 
will follow.

______________________________________________________________

July 26, 2006, CMS announced the 2007 Money Follows the Person 
demonstration grants to states. There will be $250m available 
beginning January 1, 2007 and a total $1.75 billion for five 
years. Will your State Medicaid Office participate? Will your 
State use this opportunity to rebalance its Medicaid 
institutional versus community expenditures? The full CMS 
Program Announcement is available at
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NewFreedomInitiative/
downloads/MFP_2007_Announcement.pdf

These are competitive grants. Your State must develop and 
submit a plan to receive a grant. This is a great opportunity 
for ILCs, AAAs, ARCs, AARPs to work together to use these funds
to end "unnecessary institutionalization." 

One item in the CMS Program Announcement awards extra points 
for housing. CMS recognized that "the advancement of home and
community-based long term care services requires increased 
community housing options." It states that "CMS will reward 
States [extra points] that demonstrate plans to work with 
Housing Finance Agencies to ... identify how any housing 
shortages will be addressed." That means using the low-income
housing tax credits and state administered HOME funds! 

HUD has announced it will strongly encourage Housing 
Authorities (and Housing Finance Agencies) to support MFP 
programs by helping to create opportunities for individuals to
move out of institutions. That means using Housing Vouchers, 
public housing units, local HOME funds, and CDBG funds. 

As many of you know from NUMEROUS previous Information 
Bulletins I have sent out, IF a local Housing Authority and IF
a State Housing Finance Agency want to use their programs to 
assist persons transition out of institutions, they could do 
it. NOW IS THE TIME to creatively work with them. In most 
States, your Medicaid officials and your state and local 
housing officials have never worked together. To obtain these 
extra points, they will have to jointly develop a housing 
component. 

If any of you or if your State Medicaid agencies want 
assistance in thinking about and developing a housing component
for a MFP Grant, please let me know and we will try to work it 
out. This is too important an opportunity to let it slip by. We
know that for many persons in institutions "whether nursing 
homes or ICF-MR institutions" housing is the barrier to full 
integration. 

---------------------------------------------------------
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
- Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available
  online at http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable
  Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
- To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@cs.com.

______________________________________________________________

For more Housing news issues, see:
http://www.aapd.com/News/housing/indexhousing.php

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