Addressing long-term care opportunities for the direct care workforce and adopting an all-of-government approach to aging are among the recommendations senior living leaders made in comments to senators about an Older Americans Act discussion draft in advance of a July 31 executive session about the act.

The US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension, or HELP, Committee released a discussion draft on OAA reauthorization on July 13 and requested comments by July 19. The act is reauthorized every five years, and its current authorization ends Sept. 30.

Awareness, direction needed

In a July 19 letter to Senate HELP Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and ranking member Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), American Seniors Housing Association President and CEO David Schless applauded government efforts to create programs to support the direct care workforce. He suggested, however, that trained employees should be directed to fields where they can put their skills to work.

Specifically, under the direct care workforce resource center portion of the act, ASHA suggested adding language about career opportunities available in long-term care settings such as assisted living, nursing homes and home health. ASHA also suggested that the resource center connect workers to employers in such settings.

“Creating awareness about the broad career opportunities in caregiving and facilitating placement of trained employees in settings that are experiencing great demand for their talent benefits the workers as well as the residents who will benefit from their training and care gained in these programs,” Schless wrote. 

Regarding the multinational civic engagement activities portion of the act, Schless said, ASHA supports additional voluntary programs to encourage relationships between members of different generations. The proposed Care Across Generations Act, he noted, would establish a grant program for long-term care providers to operate or contract with child care programs and facilitate intergenerational activities.

Argentum did not submit comments on the discussion draft to the Senate committee, but Senior Vice President of Public Policy Maggie Elehwany discussed the group’s advocacy in the areas of workforce and multigenerational care with McKnight’s Senior Living.

“Assisted living offers the ideal setting to embrace intergenerational care,” she said. “The Care Across Generations Act can help assisted living communities retain these vital caregivers by increasing childcare options at a time when high quality care can be hard to find.”

Elehwany said that many senior living communities still face “stubborn workforce shortages” and noted that Argentum has supported several bills to address this issue. Argentum, she said, released a new strategic plan in 2023 that sought to engage, develop and support 2 million career opportunities in senior living. The organization also is partnering with Job Corps centers to create pilot sites where students can learn more about the breadth of career opportunities in senior living.

“These are real career-long pathways for young people in caring for residents in assisted living, memory care and other senior living settings,” Elehwany said.

An all-of-government approach

LeadingAge also provided comments to leaders of the Senate HELP and Appropriations committees, as well as to leaders of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, on July 19. The association reiterated its support for an all-of-government approach to aging, including its backing of funding for the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Healthy Aging and Age-Friendly Communities, which is creating a national plan on aging.

LeadingAge also applauded the OAA discussion draft’s focus on mental health and substance abuse disorders but said that more funding is needed to address a “large and growing problem” for its members. 

“This is an issue that we started to hear about with great frequency during the pandemic, and that drumbeat continues,” LeadingAge Director of Workforce Policy Nicole Howell wrote in the letter. “We encourage a focus on and funding for attention to the unique needs of the aging population and the co-occurring manifestation of substance abuse, mental health diagnoses, undiagnosed depression and loneliness, and cognitive impairment or decline.”

The organization also said that it approves of expanding support for family caregivers and respite care as proposed in the draft, as well as broadening the scope of covered dwelling modifications to include weatherization modifications for affordable senior housing.

LeadingAge, however, said that the discussion draft missed an opportunity to formally link OAA-funded programs and resources to the Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded public housing agencies, private owners and continuum of care providers, which coordinate homeless services funding at the local level.

The association noted that a study requested in the discussion draft from the Government Accountability Office on the affordable housing needs of low-income older adults will result in duplicative information “already widely researched and understood.”

“We have an exciting opportunity to integrate the powerful lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and enact a robust and exciting vision for the future of aging services, embodied in the Older Americans Act,” Howell wrote. “Our members strongly support bold action aimed at integrating services and streamlining resources, and implore Congress to pair it with an equally strong financial investment.”