Wide-ranging human services supplemental budget bill clears House panel

People experiencing or facing imminent homelessness. Prisoners preparing to re-enter the community. The elderly.

All would benefit from the human services supplemental budget bill that cleared its inaugural committee Thursday.

The House Human Services Finance Committee approved HF5280, as amended. It now goes to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Sponsored by Rep. Mohamud Noor (DFL-Mpls), the bill would appropriate $42.13 million in fiscal year 2025 and $14.86 million in the 2026-27 biennium to the Human Services and Corrections departments for myriad disability services, aging services, substance use disorder services, civil commitment matters, and direct care and treatment services. 

“We’re never done until the end, so we’ve got some more work to do,” Noor said. “We’ve done an amazing job, a transformative job … and this will be an ongoing conversation.”

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The bill would create a new office dedicated to preventing homelessness and promoting housing support services.

The biggest appropriations in the bill are $7.18 million in fiscal year 2025 and $13.22 million in the 2026-27 biennium for forensic services or specialized mental health treatment for patients who have been charged with a crime and are civilly committed as mentally ill and dangerous.

The expansion of a nursing home loan program would receive $7.69 million in fiscal year 2025.

A new program to pay parents and spouses for serving as personal care assistants for their loved ones who require physical assistance with daily living activities would receive $4.83 million in fiscal year 2025. The Minnesota program was approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Noor said.

The Department of Human Services is trying to roll out the program smoothly so that it may commence in June, said Kristy Graume, the department’s director of legislative and external affairs for behavioral health, disability services, and housing.

The bill would appropriate $1.65 million in fiscal year 2025 and $4.29 million in the 2026-27 biennium for a new program to help individuals eligible for medical assistance to enroll prior to re-entering their community after serving time in a correctional facility.

Committee members offered nine amendments to the bill, three of which were adopted. They would:

• delete a section of the bill indicating that a seat of the Opiate Epidemic Response Advisory Council be reserved for the director of the Office of Addiction and Recovery;
• direct the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness and relevant state agencies to report certain data by Jan. 15 of each year about the number of people experiencing homelessness and their demographic composition, among other data; and
• extend the timeline to June 30, 2027, for Project ECHO. The project aims to establish at least four substance use disorder-focused programs at Hennepin Healthcare to improve health and substance use disorder outcomes for diverse, underserved populations.