Quintin King, president, Brightwater Senior Living, Bend, Ore., knows the score when it comes to workforce challenges, managing and operating 12 communities mostly in the Western U.S. and in Canada.

Lawmakers are preparing to reintroduce legislation this week that would expand access to assisted living for veterans. The legislation renews the Expanding Veterans’ Options for Long Term Care Act, introduced in the last session of Congress by Senators Jon Tester (D-MT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Patty Murray (D-WA), to establish a pilot program for eligible veterans to receive assisted living care paid for by the Veterans Administration (VA).

There are growing indications that important legislation Argentum strongly supported last year will soon be reintroduced in the 118th Congress, likely by the end of this month.

Register now for this Wednesday's Argentum Advocates monthly policy briefing. Argentum Advocates are invited to these exclusive sessions to hear directly from Argentum’s federal lobbyists on our current federal and state public policy efforts.

Argentum Advocates members are invited to an exclusive policy briefing today at 2:00 pm ET to learn more about the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package and its impact on senior living priorities. Register for this session here.

Argentum is pleased that the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package includes several provisions that we have advocated for in recent months, including language to support the senior care workforce and other job training programs, disaster relief funding to help operators recover from Hurricane Ian, increases in Alzheimer's research funding, among other provisions.

Argentum continues to seek solutions to the workforce shortage crisis and is advancing immigration reform as an important part of meaningful workforce improvements. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the EAGLE Act, a bill that would transform the way per-country VISA caps work by phasing out the 7% per-country limit on employment-based immigrant visas and raising the 7% per-country limit on family-sponsored visas to 15%. These changes would alleviate backlogs and provide an allotment of visas for professional nurses and physical therapists, all of which could help ease the strain on the labor market. While the House is expected to pass this bill, it will not be considered by the Senate. Argentum supports the EAGLE Act and is pursuing additional administrative and legislative measures that will provide more directed solutions to senior living workforce challenges.

Control of both the U.S. House and Senate hangs in the balance as ballots continue to be counted in several key states. Regardless of the final tally, it is clear that the next two years will feature a closely divided Congress. What will this mean for senior living’s policy priorities? What issues are likely to dominate the debate? How will this impact the next two years of the Biden Administration?

Argentum Advocates are invited to an exclusive member briefing on November 17 at 2:00 pm ET to help make sense of these results and what to expect moving forward.

The first-ever Senior Living DEIB Survey on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), and the Senior Living DEIB Toolkit to aid industry operators and organizations in advancing DEIB practices is now available. The survey, conducted by Ferguson Partners, collected information across the participating companies both the degree to which DEIB programs are deployed and the diversity of their respective staff. The survey results indicated opportunities for senior living companies to give more focus to DEIB efforts; and, the DEIB Toolkit was developed for interested companies to customize programs suited to their respective firms.

Released by the Senior Living DEIB Coalition, a partnership among Argentum, the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA), and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), the new survey marks the first industry-wide effort to summarize the data on DEIB.

Industry leaders hailed the study’s release and stressed the work on DEIB is just beginning. “As an industry focused on service and growth, creating diverse and welcoming organizations is the right path and a critical aspect of expanding talent and human capital to meet workforce needs within senior living,” shared James Balda, president & CEO of Argentum. “The survey and toolkit are just the first steps towards this industry-wide need and effort.  
 
Survey Results
The executive summary provides a snapshot on the current state of DEIB within the industry. Administered by Ferguson Partners, the survey uncovers several practices being implemented by senior living organizations and the percentage of organizations executing on specific DEIB initiatives. It also provides demographic breakdowns related to gender, race, orientations, and other diversity measures.

“The survey signifies the beginning for senior living to measure year-over-year progress of DEIB efforts,” said Chuck Harry, COO of NIC. “It serves as a catalyst for additional dialogue within organizations around the practices necessary to advance DEIB.”
 
DEIB Toolkit
The DEIB toolkit, developed by The Axela Group, is the Coalition’s first initiative to help organizations advance DEIB practices. It is designed to inform, educate, encourage, and drive stakeholders to resources to assist them in DEIB pursuits.

“The toolkit is where the rubber meets the road and senior living organizations take action to either launch or advance DEIB initiatives,” stated ASHA President & CEO David Schless. “It contains resources to inform, equip, and catalyze positive impact and thinking around DEIB and will undergo periodic upgrades as we learn more and advance our industry.”

The Executive Survey results can be found here.

The DEIB Toolkit can be found here.

For more information, contact owilson@argentum.org.

Argentum Advocates are invited to join us for an exclusive briefing tomorrow, November 2 at 2pm ET to learn about the potential impact of the November elections on senior living priorities in the "Lame Duck" and the next session of Congress. The session will be presented by Joe Novotny, who served as an aide in the House of Representatives for nearly 30 years.