People with disabilities and the American Rescue Plan

Guest:  Todd Vaarwerk

Topic:  People with disabilities and the American Rescue Plan

Duration:  5:33

Published:  March 25, 2021

Host:  Welcome to Independent Perspective, a public affairs presentation of Western New York Independent Living. Our guest today is Todd Vaarwerk, Chief Policy Officer of Western New York Independent Living, and your host is yours truly Ernie Churchwell. Welcome to the program Todd.

Guest:  Always good to be here.

Host:  Something that has been in the headlines a great deal of late is the effects of the American Rescue Plan, and it's $1.9. trillion-dollar price tag which has been a matter of great debate and controversy. Most of the discussion has been about things like the stimulus check and unemployment extensions, and housing access and whatnot, but I bet you there's some stuff in the fine print that can actually be something good for people with disabilities and you as the person who knows all things political can tell us just what those are.

Guest:  Well, let's start with the thing that everybody wants to talk about, everybody wants to talk about the third stimulus payment. And for some people with disabilities, the third stimulus payment isn't actually the third stimulus payment, it's their first stimulus payment. Because if you were listed as a person who was a dependent of someone else, right, you weren't eligible to get either of the previous federal stimulus payments. This particular stimulus payment was legislatively, put together to include all those people that have been excluded before. So, there's going to be $1400 that's going to come your way through either your rep payee or the member of the family that might handle your money. And everybody thinks that's a great deal, but then when we come to people with disabilities everybody kind of stops and goes, hold on a minute. Hold on a minute, that's money. Aren't I only allowed to have a certain amount of money in my bank account? And that's true. People that are on federal benefits have a resource limit. SSI folks, it's $2,000 by way of example.

Host:  And if you could tell people what SSI is?

Guest:  Supplemental Security Income. Now the important thing we want to remember for those SSI recipients with the $2,000 limit is that the stimulus payments, any of them you've received up till now, don't count as resources in your account if you go over $2,000 until a year after you got them. So, for most people, that was that either already have or will start receiving the $1400 electronically deposited in their accounts, they won't be considered a resource, until April, 2022, because this is March is month one, and you go forward 12, that's March of 2022. So in April 2022 they would start, they would start being counted as a resource.

Host:  Okay. Are there other things about the rescue act, that can help people with disabilities?

Guest:  Absolutely, we scored a big, we scored a huge victory in the agreement for a 10% increase in the federal Medicaid medical assistance percentage for HCBS and community-based services. That's going to help us continue our drive to get people out of institutions and get back home. And I know that you mentioned housing earlier and there's a lot of stuff going on there with housing, including fair housing, because we know in searching to get housing when you're in a nursing home and you need to leave, sometimes you might have some difficulty navigating people that don't know about reasonable accommodations or your rights as a tenant. The Recovery Act bill gives additional money to those agencies like locally our housing opportunities made equal to new Fair Housing enforcement.

Host:  Todd, I'm sure you whetted people's appetites, but we're about out of time. How can people get a hold of you to ask those questions you've stimulated in them?

Guest:  They can always give my office a call 716-836-0822 extension 101.

Host:  Thanks so much for being with us Todd.

Guest:  Always a pleasure.

Host:  You’ve been listening to Independent Perspective, a Public Affairs presentation of Western New York Independent Living. Our guest today was Todd Vaarwerk, Chief Policy Officer of Western New York Independent Living, and your host is yours truly Ernie Churchwell.