Agenda - Council - 09/13/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The final rule maintains the presumptions identified in the interim final rule, as well as recipients' ability to identify other impacted or disproportionately impacted classes. The final rule also allows recipients to presume that low-income households were disproportionately impacted, and as discussed above, defines low- and moderate -income. Finally, under the final rule recipients may also presume that households residing in the U.S. territories or receiving services from territorial governments were disproportionately impacted. Households presumed to be impacted: Impacted households are those that experienced a public health or negative economic impact from the pandemic. With regard to public health impacts, recipients may presume that the general public experienced public health impacts from the pandemic for the purposes of providing services for COVID-19 mitigation and behavioral health. In other words, recipients may provide a wide range of enumerated eligible uses in these categories to the general public without further analysis. As discussed in the introduction, COVID-19 as a disease has directly affected the health of tens of millions of Americans, and efforts to prevent and mitigate the spread of the disease are needed and in use across the country. Further, the stress of the pandemic and resulting recession have affected nearly all Americans. Accordingly, the final rule presumes that the general public are impacted by and eligible for services to respond to COVID-19 mitigation and prevention needs, as well as behavioral health needs. With regard to negative economic impacts, as with the interim final rule, under the final rule recipients may presume that a household or population that experienced unemployment, experienced increased food or housing insecurity, or is low- or moderate -income experienced negative economic impacts resulting from the pandemic. The final rule's definition of low- and 37