Argentum and our State Partner, the Florida Senior Living Association (FSLA), are closely monitoring the impact and aftermath of Hurricane Milton, which struck near the Tampa Bay area late last night and tracked across the Florida Peninsula today. As of this afternoon, more than 550 health care facilities in the state remain without power. There have been no reported deaths of assisted living residents.

More than 400 health care facilities evacuated due to the storm, including 222 assisted living communities, making this the largest evacuation of these facilities in Florida’s history. Many communities went above and beyond to help their residents, families, and caregivers through a smooth evacuation process, such as Barrington Terrace in Fort Myers. At least one community in Tampa—not located in an evacuation zone—was forced to evacuate early this morning due to rising flood waters. For any community that had to evacuate, it is the state’s first priority to relocate residents back to their communities.

Argentum and FSLA are monitoring community needs regarding power outages, phone/internet access, water/sewage, or accessibility due to flooding that may prevent safe passage of residents, caregivers, and supplies. To ensure that these needs are communicated to emergency management officials, we ask that operators fill out our brief survey; we will relay these responses to authorities to provide assistance. Communities may also report to Paul Williams with Argentum (pwilliams@argentum.org, 410-900-5100) or Gail Matillo, President & CEO of FSLA, at info@floridaseniorliving.org or 850-496-2562.

Workforce Support
To help with immediate workforce needs due to the storm, now through October 14, Argentum member KARE will waive all fees associated with bringing in Heroes for communities that request help from KARE; the communities will pay only for the cost of labor. For affected Florida communities, KARE will have an operations team standing by to help post shifts and reach out to Heroes to fill open shifts. KARE has around 4,000 Heroes (CNAs, CMAs, LPNs and RNs) in the general area of the storm track. To get started:

Preparations are underway for the expected landfall later today of Hurricane Milton in Florida. The storm is a category 4 hurricane and expected to remain at hurricane strength as it moves across the Florida peninsula, bringing rainfall of 6-12 inches with localized rainfall of 18 inches, and risk of catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding. During an emergency preparedness briefing held today in Tallahassee, emergency authorities advised:

• Over 300 health care facilities have been evacuated making this the largest evacuation of these facilities in Florida’s history.
• Approximately 217 assisted living communities have evacuated as of this afternoon, with the window for evacuations rapidly closing.
• Assisted living and other health care operators have the authority to exceed resident capacity without approval from the Agency for Health Care Administration for the next two weeks.
• Assisted living communities are advised to update their status in the Health Facility Reporting System daily by 10:00 a.m. or in the event of any change in status.
• Due to the anticipated severity of the storm, authorities are projecting potential long-term utility outages and ask for that everyone prepare for that possibility.
• Power companies throughout the anticipated affected areas are already staging repair and restoration crews.

Argentum’s State Partner, the Florida Senior Living Association (FSLA), is leading efforts to prepare senior living providers for the storm while also helping those recovering from Hurricane Helene. Part of storm preparation includes communicating directly with Florida emergency management operations and regulatory personnel as well as exploring contingencies for providers in meeting resident needs.

Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia have been severely impacted by Hurricane Helene, which has caused over 100 deaths along with damage and economic losses that may exceed $100 billion. No senior living resident deaths or significant injuries have occurred as a result of Hurricane Helene.

Reports from Argentum State Partners in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia:

Last Friday, September 27, the House of Representatives officially published the text of H.R. 9156, the Health Over Wealth Act, introduced in July by Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). This bill would place new requirements on private investment in the health care industry, to include requiring the Department of Health & Human Services to review and approve any mergers/acquisitions of a "health care facility" by a REIT or Private Equity firm.

Argentum is pleased to confirm that the House version of the bill does not include assisted living in the definitions of covered health care entities subject to the bill’s requirements; it is therefore a direct companion of S. 4804 introduced in July by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). While we were internally confident that both the House and Senate version were the same, as communicated by lawmakers in our outreach, we were not able to officially confirm this until the House of Representatives published the text of the legislation.

We sincerely appreciate all the advocacy efforts by our State Partner, the Massachusetts Assisted Living Association (Mass-ALA), our members, and other stakeholders who helped make this possible. Excluding assisted living from the bill is a direct result of a months-long campaign to raise serious concerns about the consequences of limiting private capital investment in assisted living.

Argentum's Silver PAC hosted a reception this week attended by nearly two-dozen members of Congress, offering a forum to meet Silver PAC contributors and share ideas on solving the workforce and affordability challenges in senior living.

Among the discussions included ideas on how to make senior living more affordable by working within the tax code, by allowing HSAs, FSAs, and other tax-advantaged savings accounts to be used to pay for long-term care expenses without a penalty, either for the individual or for a family member accessing services. Lawmakers also suggested ideas with long-term care insurance and life insurance.

Lawmakers also shared their interest in addressing the workforce needs across long-term care, with a need to recruit and retain more than 20 million workers by the year 2040. Argentum has already advanced language through the appropriations process to utilize existing federal workforce funding for senior caregiver programs. Lawmakers also expressed concerns about the nursing home staffing mandate and its unintended consequence of pulling workers from assisted living.

Lawmakers attending the event included:

Argentum has been closely monitoring Hurricane Helene, as it makes landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida, tracks across Georgia, and remnants of the storm hit inland areas.

Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone impacted by the storm, including senior living residents and staff. We have been in contact with our State Partners who will be available to help navigate any issues or relay information to the respective state emergency departments.
 
We also ask that anyone impacted by the storm to provide Paul Williams (pwilliams@argentum.org) with a general update on how your residents and communities are doing relative to Hurricane Helene as well as any assistance that you need.

This week, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced $19 million in funding to address workforce shortages through the Health Workforce Initiative. The funding will be made over four years to five schools, including two community colleges, to increase the nursing workforce practicing in acute care settings and long-term care facilities.

Argentum has met directly with HRSA on the need to invest in our long-term care workforce, with a projected demand of more than 20 million workers across the sector by the year 2040. Workers are needed not only in personal care, but in every career it takes to operate senior living communities.

Argentum has successfully advocated for legislative language to transform existing education and training programs specifically to develop the long-term care workforce. Argentum is seeking to expand on these efforts through the upcoming Federal appropriations process.

U.S. Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), who serves as the Ranking Member on the U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee, recently visited with residents and staff of The Residence at Orchard Grove, an LCB Senior Living community in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

In addition to the opportunity to meet with residents, Congressman McGovern also spoke with staff as well as representatives from the Massachusetts Assisted Living Association (MASS-ALA) and Argentum about issues of importance to senior living providers. Topics discussed included workforce development and ensuring quality of life for senior living residents. Congressman McGovern has been a consistent champion for senior living and we appreciate LCB Senior Living and MASS-ALA leadership for coordinating this tour and visit with Congressman McGovern and his staff.

Now it's your turn.

Congress is in session for the next three weeks, but will be back in their districts all of October until after the November elections. Over the next three weeks, we need your help to schedule and plan visits with lawmakers so we can tell our story of senior living.

To get started, please download our toolkit which contains a step-by-step guide on how to host lawmakers. Want to hear from those who have already executed events? Watch this testimonial from Tana Gall, President of Merrill Gardens, and Michael Queene, General Manager of The Pines of Newmarket, as they shared their experiences in meeting with and hosting lawmakers for visits at senior living communities.

Congress returns to Washington, D.C. today from its annual August recess, and lawmakers will have a three-week legislative sprint before heading back to the campaign trail ahead of the November elections, now just eight weeks away.

In what has been one of the “strangest” political years ever, it is not out of the question that the White House, House, and Senate could each flip control, with a half dozen states and their electoral college votes rated as toss-ups in the presidential race, and dozens of seats in contention in an already narrowly-divided Congress.

What does this all mean for senior living? To help make sense of the state of the elections and the significant impacts they could have on public policy issues, including Argentum's priorities of increasing access and affordability and addressing our workforce needs, Argentum recently hosted a webinar with special guest Christian Morgan, managing principal of Husch Blackwell Strategies.

On August 28, the California Assisted Living Association (CALA) hosted its first ever "Federal Day in Your District" where CALA members met with Congressional Representatives in their district offices to cultivate relationships, help shape discussions at the federal level, and share the voice of Assisted Living. Notably, Rep. Julia Brownley joined the 21st Century Long Term Care Caucus just a few hours after her teams’ Federal Day in Your District meeting.

PICTURED: Dana Stansel, Atria Rocklin; U.S. Representative Kevin Kiley; Cheryl Martin, Prairie City Landing in Folsom; Cynthia Bazin, Prairie City Landing in Folsom; James Dial, Oakmont of Roseville.

PICTURED: CALA members with U.S. Representative Mike Thompson.

30 CALA members met with the following Representatives and their staff: