Medicaid officials are looking to “jump-start efforts” to move people with disabilities from institutions to community-based settings and they’re offering up millions of dollars to do so.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said this week that up to $165 million is available to states for a program called Money Follows the Person.

The Medicaid program provides funding to states to cover employment supports, housing and other services so that individuals with disabilities can transition from nursing homes and other institutional facilities to homes in the community.

Federal officials said that they want to boost transitions out of institutional facilities particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit nursing homes and other congregate settings especially hard.

“The tragic devastation wrought by the coronavirus on nursing home residents exposes America’s overreliance on institutional long-term care facilities,” said Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Increasing direct care workers’ pay to a living wage would not only raise their total wages by $9.4 billion by 2022, it would also come with a set of benefits for operators, which includes less staff shortages and turnover costs, an industry study reveals.  

LeadingAge on Tuesday released findings from its new analysis that examined what would happen if direct care workers received a living wage. A living wage is defined as a wage that would allow workers to pay for basic living expenses out of their own earnings and without relying on public assistance.

The findings showed that if a living wage was adopted, current direct care workers, who don’t make a living wage, would earn a total pay increase of $5 billion by 2022, and workers who do currently earn a living wage would see a total indirect pay increase of about $500 million. 

Additionally, it found that adopting a living wage would in turn increase hours for workers and result in an additional $2.24 billion in pay. It would also attract more people to the profession and result in another $1.59 billion in pay. 

“All in all, pay would go up by $9.4 billion by 2022 in the industry,” researcher Christian Weller, Ph.D., a UMass professor and senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, said during Tuesday during a panel discussion on the findings. “That’s the starting point.”

Weller explained that the study also found that the benefits from the higher pay would also reduce turnover and associated turnover costs, increase worker productivity and reduce financial insecurity for staff members.

Deplorable conditions, that's how a sergeant with the Harris County Precinct 7 Constable's Office described an unlicensed group home.

At least 35 people were living inside a two story home in the 14000 block of Long Meadow Drive.

ABC13 has also learned from deputies that over the past several months, they've responded to two deaths at the home. Eyewitness News is waiting to get more information on that.

Deputies said the home was infested with cockroaches, had little food, no medication and was operating with just one functioning restroom for at least 35 people. The group home is called the Caring Hands Group Homes.

"I would have never in a million years guessed that, that was going on four houses down from me," said neighbor Ivana Moore.

Neighbors said that they saw people coming and going, but never imagined this was happening behind closed doors.

A new survey showed Connecticut’s nonprofits scrambling to stay afloat in the pandemic, with two-thirds having cut services and one in five unsure if they can meet payroll.

The analysis, prepared for the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance, also found that 67% of organizations were unable to hold fundraising activities while others face declining donations or had philanthropic grants placed on hold.

“COVID-19 has challenged community nonprofits in every possible way, from fundraising through the delivery of services,” said Gian Carl Casa, alliance president and CEO. “Many human service providers on the frontlines of the crisis have struggled to continue to keep their doors open, while protecting both employees and the people they serve.”

The alliance represents more than 300 agencies that provide social services, health, education, housing, and arts and cultural programs. The state delivers the bulk of public-sponsored social services through contracts with private, community-level nonprofits.

An Oregon senator blasted the Oregon Health Authority on Wednesday for ignoring people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in proposed reforms of the behavioral health care system.

Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, said she is tired of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities being “invisible” in Oregon. Her statement followed a presentation by the health authority to a Senate committee about recommendations from the Governor’s Behavioral Health Advisory Council. The meeting of the Senate Interim Committee on Mental Health is part of Oregon Legislative Days, a weeklong series of lawmaker meetings to prepare for the 2021 session.

Nearly 3,000 people with disabilities statewide, who were told to leave their jobs on March 17 as the coronavirus pandemic hit, are still waiting to go back to work, advocates said.

The workers, their families and advocates have urged the governor to reopen employment programs for people with disabilities as soon as possible. They have been shut-in too long, and furthermore, not allowing them to return to work reeks of discrimination, they said. Many of the individuals affected live in group homes throughout the state.

Matthew Putts is CEO of Employment Horizons, a nonprofit that trains and places people with “significant disabilities” in jobs like refurbishing returned cable and internet equipment, mailing and collating, and light manufacturing assembly.

“We are regularly getting Facebook messages and calls from clients saying, ‘Am I ever coming back?’” he said.

Putts said he does not understand why job programs haven’t come back online yet, since other programs that serve the same population, have been making plans and will be reopening this month.