House Financial Services Subcommittee Issues Testimony From Kentucky Housing
"Chairman Duffy, Members of the Subcommittee:
"I am
"We all understand that opioid addiction is a major public health issue with significant personal and societal consequences. We have found that there are many effective recovery strategies, depending on the personal circumstances of those caught in the grip of addiction. Stable housing is a basic human need and one of the primary social indicators of public health. Access to stable housing is one common factor that is essential for all of these strategies to produce positive results.
"One of the most successful recovery strategies we have seen in
"The Recovery Kentucky Centers follow a peer-to-peer education and self-help model that uses mutual self-help, a "social model" approach, to provide sustained addiction recovery services. The centers are not licensed medical facilities and, thus, do not qualify for Medicaid reimbursement. All residents have Medicaid or private health insurance. Therefore, physical or mental health needs can be provided through licensed service providers in their local community. The recovery centers provide a highly structured program for residents. Peer Mentors model behaviors and spiritual principles that focus on providing life skills to residents by following the spiritual principles of the 12 steps of
"Information from the University of
* 83% of all residents in the recovery programs used illegal drugs 6 months before entering a recovery center. Follow-up surveys of former residents showed that only 5 % had used illegal drugs within six months of having left a recovery center.
* Six months prior to entering a recovery center, 63% of residents reported opioid misuse. At follow-up one year later, only 2% reported opioid misuse since leaving the recovery center.
* 38% of residents were homeless at intake; 2% were homeless at follow-up.
* 56% had been arrested and 76% had been incarcerated six months before entering a recovery center. At follow-up, 3% had been arrested and 13% had been incarcerated.
* Cost savings analysis suggests that for every dollar invested in recovery services there has been an estimated
"Overall, Recovery Kentucky program clients made significant strides in all the targeted areas and have much more support for their recovery after participating in the program. The program saves taxpayer dollars through avoided costs based on the rates of drug and alcohol use.
"Recovery
* Low Income Housing Tax Credits
* HOME Investment Partnerships Program
* Community Development
* Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program
*
"Other important sources of funding come from the
"It has become increasingly difficult to develop more
* There is less funding in key federal programs.
- HOME Program funds have contributed to constructing the Recovery Centers. The 50% reduction in HOME funds since the Recovery Kentucky initiative began has sharply limited the ability of developers to pull construction financing together to build more centers.
- CDBG funding has been critical for the ongoing operation of the facilities.
- The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program provides rental assistance that supports residential facility maintenance and operating costs. KHC currently has a three-year waiting list for our Housing Choice Voucher program. Additional funding would help meet the need for people in recovery in addition to the low-income residents of rural
* These federal programs have stringent regulations that impede the effective use of the dollars.
- KHC has experienced significant challenges recruiting landlords to participate in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher, tenant-based program, with many citing programmatic red tape as an obstacle. Additionally, federal statutes restrict the amount of tenant-based rental assistance that may be used for a specific property (pursuant to the project-based rental assistance option) to 20% of a public housing authority's Housing Choice Vouchers. While some urban public housing authorities have been permitted to exceed this limit under a demonstration program, many authorities,
"including KHC, are at or near the 20% limitation. One useful reform would be to raise the 20% cap and allow public housing authorities, like KHC, to use these vouchers to meet our specific needs at the local level to connect people to housing with services. This is an extremely important source of funding for developing supportive housing for individuals completing recovery and acute treatment programs to keep them on the path toward employment, self-sufficiency, and family reunification. I sit on the Board of Directors of the
- Many other states have expressed interest in replicating the Recovery Kentucky model because of its demonstrated effectiveness. However, many of these states report that they have not been able to access resources like CDBG for a Recovery Kentucky Model. The operations of almost all of the Recovery Kentucky centers are subsidized by CDBG funds. It would be helpful to have a dedicated source of funding for recovery centers outside of the CDBG funding, so that CDBG funds can be freed up for infrastructure and other community needs, while recovery centers receive their own dedicated source of funding.
"I will conclude my remarks with these key statements:
* Recovery Kentucky is a housing-based model that has produced remarkable outcomes and has proven to be highly cost effective.
* Housing is a key component of successful recovery programs and is essential for long-term recovery.
* Greater flexibility with federal housing program regulations will provide states more control of the resources needed to achieve the goals of the President's
"Thank you for taking on this difficult, but important, work to help ensure access to effective recovery programs. KHC led the way more than a decade ago and remains a dedicated partner to this effort."
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