The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), in partnership with Minnesota Housing, the state’s housing finance agency (MHFA), introduced a new Medical Assistance (MA) benefit, called Housing Stabilization Services (HSS), in 2020. HSS is a set of 1915(i) Home- and Community-Based Services implemented by DHS as part of MA, the state’s Medicaid program, intended to help individuals approved for MA find and keep housing.
After four years of implementation and through dramatic program growth, DHS and Minnesota Housing identified the need for programmatic and service improvements. The number of individuals enrolled in HSS has increased more than nine times between 2020 and 2023. Minnesota’s HSS benefit was one of the first of its kind to be approved by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Since then, CMS has approved a broader array of state plan amendments and waivers for states to support housing-related needs, opening new possibilities for improving Minnesota’s HSS benefit.