On Monday, U.S. Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) visited Merrill Gardens at West Chester, located in her southeastern Pennsylvania Congressional district.
Rep. Houlahan's visit included a townhall forum with several residents, and offered an opportunity to discuss affordability issues, particularly for residents in memory care. They also discussed workforce issues, including barriers of transportation and child card, and constraints in Pennsylvania with regulations regarding education requirements for direct care workers. Rep. Houlahan was also asked for support of the Veterans assisted living pilot program, the forthcoming SENIOR Act, and the 21st Century Long-term Care Caucus.
Lawmakers are preparing to embark on a five week recess, meeting with constituents and holding community events back in their states and districts. We need your help to be part of these discussions and to tell the story of senior living!
One of the best ways to meet with lawmakers is by hosting them for visits at a senior living community, where they will have the opportunity to see first-hand daily life of residents and caregivers and better understand our challenges and the legislative solutions we have proposed.
To help more senior living communities join in our grassroots advocacy efforts to educate and inform lawmakers on the value of senior living and our policy solutions, Argentum prepared a toolkit on hosting lawmakers for community visits.
The toolkit includes sample invitations you can send to lawmakers, a sample itinerary or tour structure, best practices for preparing for your visit, how to make your request for support of legislation and continue your conversation after the event concludes, and information on how to get started and work with Argentum and your State Partners in setting up these events.
We strongly encourage all Argentum member communities to host lawmakers as part of community tours. If you are interested in hosting a lawmaker, please reach out to Kyle Loeber at kloeber@argentum.org.
