Accessing Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits is a critical step toward income stability for Veterans whose work activity is limited by disabling conditions or who have children with disabilities. SOAR directly contributes to SSVF’s goal of promoting housing stability among very low-income Veteran families by increasing access to critical income supports.
SOAR extends beyond accessing SSI/SSDI and also encourages employment as a means to increase individual income and further promote recovery. This issue brief explores Individual Placement and Support (IPS), a model of supported employment that has been developed over the past 25 years specifically for people who have behavioral health needs.
This article explains how you can promote SOAR with your Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) office to help ease their backlog and workload issues, while at the same time, improving access to expedited decisions for SOAR applicants.
Peers have a unique ability to engage with individuals and help people share information about how their conditions affect their ability to function, treatment sources, and collateral sources of evidence. This issue brief developed by the SAMHSA SOAR TA Center explores how peers are a natural fit to help people with the SSI/SSDI application process using SOAR.
The CARES Act included additional Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) funding for communities. There is an opportunity for ESG recipients and Continuums of Care (CoCs) to use some of this funding to support dedicated SOAR case workers.
When employers recognize the value of SOAR case workers and coordinators by offering them equitable salaries, the benefits go beyond the individual case worker.