Tell Your Senators #WhatWeNeed in the HEALS Act is HCBS Funding

Email your Senators now and join us for a call-in day on Tuesday August 4 to push for the inclusion of dedicated funding for home and community-based services (HCBS) in the new coronavirus relief legislation being negotiated in the Senate! We’ll have the latest updates available on our Facebook event and encourage everyone to please RSVP and spread the word! We need you to share your story and encourage others to share their stories with their Senators using the hashtag #WhatWeNeed!

HCBS funding is crucial to help people with disabilities and older adults stay safe in their own homes and avoid being forced into dangerous nursing homes and other congregate settings, where there have been extremely high infection and death rates during the pandemic.  But funding was not included in the Senate’s latest coronavirus relief package, the HEALS Act, that was introduced last week.

The House included dedicated funding for HCBS in the HEROES Act (H.R. 6800), and it is critical that the Senate do the same. Even if you’ve called or emailed before, or shared your HCBS story on social media, we need you to contact your Senators again. It’s urgent that they hear from as many of us as possible, as soon as possible to get dedicated HCBS funding included in the bill.

Contact your Senators today! You can use the form on this page to email and tweet your Senators directly. You can also find information to email and tweet Senate leadership and the leadership of the Senate Finance Committee, a call in script, email script, and sample tweets here.

More on our efforts to make sure the needs of the disability community are met during the COVID-19 pandemic can be found on our advocacy page. For more information on HCBS and why dedicated funding is so critical right now, check out our fact sheet.