Assistance program
Rehabilitation Services Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who are Blind
$291.2 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Education, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 84.177
- What it does
- To provide any independent living services that are described in 34 CFR Section 367.3(b) of the program regulations to older individuals who are blind; improve or expand services for these individuals; and conduct activities to help improve public understanding of the challenges of these individuals.
- Who benefits
- Older individuals who are blind, as defined in 34 CFR 367.5 of the ILOIB program regulations are the primary beneficiaries of assistance under this program. This term means "an individual aged 55 or older whose severe visual impairment makes competitive employment extremely difficult to obtain but for whom independent living goals are feasible."
- Who applies
- The State agency in the 50 States, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the territories (Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) designated by the State as the State agency authorized to provide vocational rehabilitation services to blind individuals may apply.
- Authorized by
- Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, Title VII, Chapter 2
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments