HUD Issues Notice of Funding for Extremely Low-Income Non-Elderly People With Disabilities. Information Bulletin #358 (5/2012) On Tuesday, May 15, 2012, HUD issued in the Federal Register its “FY 2012 Section 811 Project Rental Assistance NOFA.” For background information, go to our Information Bulletin # 350 issued on February 10, 2012 at www.stevegoldada.com This Section 811 Project based rental assistance program makes $85 million available for housing subsidies, aka vouchers This is the first time that the federal funds require a connection between your State housing agencies (in most States it is the Finance Agency which administers your Low-Income Housing Tax Credits) and you State Medicaid agency. It is a joint effort between HUD and CMS. There must be a formal written agreement between these two State agencies. You may ask, what’s the importance of this written agreement for advocates of people with disabilities? The answer: Your State Medicaid/Waiver /MFP agencies will be able to ensure that people institutionalized, particularly those institutionalized primarily because they need financial housing subsidies to reside in the community, will have these Section 811 Project Rental Assistance to leave the institution and to reside in the community. It’s a real win/win for your State Medicaid/Waiver/MFP agencies. They can save a substantial amount of Medicaid expenditures by using these Section 811 housing vouchers for people who are unnecessarily institutionalized, and it costs your States nothing! It’s also a real win for your State Housing Finance Agency, because they can ensure that the lowest income people will reside in tax credit units. Here’s the kicker. Given the limited funds, your State must compete with other States and probably no more than 16 States will receive grants. We are confident that both HUD and CMS will look more favorably on those applications where advocates in the disability community have been real partners. We are also confident that if your State Medicaid agency disses you, that you will let HUD and CMS know! Therefore, this gives disability advocates a meaningful opportunity to get to the table to move folks out of institutions. Deadline for State applications to HUD is July 31, 2012. Disability Advocates “Get on your horses” now. Contact in writing your State Housing Finance Agency, your MFP folks, and your Medicaid administrators. Tell them you want to help them! Tell them you want to participate in this process and that “Nothing About Us Without Us.” A HOUSE KEEPING NOTE. A few folks have told me that these Information Bulletins have wound up in their spam. FYI – the list serve is about 8,000 people (directly) so that’s not surprising. Please add the address stevegoldada@stevegoldada.com into you contacts folder to prevent messages from being sent to the Spam folder or rejections up delivery. Also, that address is NOT the same for emails from which you want responses. The email address from which I respond is stevegoldada1@gmail.com 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. As of August, 2010, Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/ To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.