We have received questions from our members regarding the American Rescue Plan, the third of the COVID-19 related stimulus packages passed by Congress. Many wonder how it will impact our work.
Obviously, it will take time to iron out some of the details, however, this fact sheet from our friends at the National Low Income Housing Coalition, gives a high level overview of those items directly connected to housing and homelessness. Incidentally, this does not even cover everything in our field. For instance, the education portion of the law includes funding to assist students experiencing homelessness, too.
It’s important to remember, however, that in almost all instances, if appropriate, we always want to attempt to divert a client first. In that respect, as you can see in this infographic, other larger provisions of the new law give us new tools to help our clients resolve their homelessness. Three specific components stand out:
- Stimulus checks – The checks are larger this time and include larger checks for dependent children, in many instances through their early 20s.
- Expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit – The former will include some type of periodic, likely monthly distribution, akin to child allowances that exist in other countries.
- Improvement of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – This long-time bipartisan tool to help mainly families with children will be even better for them. However, the most interesting enhancement is for those who have been mostly left out of previous iterations of this benefit, those without children.
According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, the changes to the CTC alone, “are expected to cut child poverty in half. Poverty for Black children would fall by 52 percent, by 45 percent for Hispanic children, and by 61 percent for Indigenous children.”
