Congress is currently preparing an economic recovery package based on the “American Jobs Plan” proposed by President Biden to improve America’s physical and social infrastructure and help move the economy forward and out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lawmakers are negotiating with the Administration and crafting the legislative language for this bill now.
While details of what will be included in the final bill are subject to change as the process moves forward, we are asking Members of Congress to support the following significant provisions for our network currently being considered:
- $400 billion for home and community-based services (HCBS) for older adults and persons with disabilities. This unprecedented investment in these services could enable health and human services providers to expand services and eliminate the nationwide waitlist of 850,000 older adults and persons with disabilities so they can receive needed services in their homes and communities. This could also help address the workforce shortage, for example, through increased wages and benefits for direct care workers. Finally, it would allow expansion of the Money Follows the Person program and for older adults transitioning from acute care setting to their homes to receive the services needed to prevent rehospitalization such as transportation, nutrition, and more.
- $213 billion for affordable housing and homelessness services to produce, preserve, and retrofit more than two million affordable and sustainable places to live, address longstanding public housing capital needs, and eliminate exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies.
- Inclusion of the provisions of the WORK NOW Act (S. 740): this $50 billion grant program will provide nonprofit health and human services organizations funding to pay wages, salaries and benefits to retain staff, meet the greater demand for services, and hire unemployed workers.
More information can be found in our detailed summary.
Join us by sending a message to lawmakers: please support provisions currently under consideration which would benefit nonprofit health and human services providers. While we will continue to advocate that ALL our crucial priorities for further support for nonprofits be enacted, it’s important for lawmakers to hear our voice now as they prepare the current legislation.
