News & Press Releases

Factsheet: There's No Place Like Home

$52,000,000 New Dollars for NEW SERVICES!

That’s NEW SERVICES for 3,126 adults and children currently receiving NO SERVICES!

That’s NEW ENROLLMENT for these important programs:

• The Family Assistance Program (FAP)
• The Home-Based Services Programs (HBSSP)
• Community Integrated Living Arrangements (CILA) which provides services to people living in group homes
• The New Children’s Support Services Waiver

* Based on $623/month or $7,476/year
** Based on current average spending of $18,000/year
*** Based on current average spending of $40,000/year
**** Based on projected average spending $18,090/year

FACT SHEET

• $52 million will provide NEW enrollment in programs for individuals (adults and children) who do not currently receive services. They include a variety of choices such as Community Integrated Living Arrangements, the Family Assistance and Home-Based Support Services Program, and the new Children’s Support Services Waiver.

• The true cost of to Illinois is $28,000,000. ALL of these programs (with the exception of the Family Assistance Program) receive 50% Federal Financial Participation through Medicaid.

• No one knows the challenges of caring for children or adults with disabilities better than their families. The cost of special care and equipment can be so great it is impossible to make ends meet. It is often difficult to take a loved one out in the community, isolating the individual and the family.

• Many people with disabilities need constant care and support, placing caregivers under great stress. Caregivers must often give up jobs and careers, placing their families under further stress. Issues that confront families include financial problems, marital stress, missed opportunities, fragmented services, confusing and contradictory information, stigma, isolation, uncertainty, and exclusion from decision-making.
  

• The Family Assistance Program currently provides a monthly stipend of $623 (one times SSI) a month to families that include minor children with developmental. Taxable family income cannot exceed $50,000. There has been NO NEW enrollment for this program in FIVE YEARS!

• A Children’s Waiver will allow families that include children with disabilities to access the important supports and services they need to be strong and healthy and to raise their children to be the best that they can be IN THEIR OWN HOMES.

• The Home-Based Support Services Program provides adults who have severe developmental disabilities with supports and services with a value up to $1,869 per month.

New residential placement in Illinois is currently only available to individuals with disabilities who are in desperate crisis — and even then it’s often not available.

The Family Assistance and Home-Based Support Services Programs and the new Children’s Support Waiver are part of a growing national movement to offer supports and services to individuals with disabilities and their families at home. These programs allow individuals and families to design services and programs that are flexible and fit their own unique needs.