Thanks for Your Calls to Congress
A quick update on yesterday’s long-term care services and supports calls to Congress. More than 7,000 calls were made and nearly 2,000 emails.
THANK YOU!
We’ll update you on another call-in day being planned for August. The goal: Make long-term care financing reform part of health care reform.
Please Tell Congress to Make Long-Term Care Part of Health Care Reform
Ecumen Team Members in Mankato, Minn.
Please take 3 minutes today (Wed., May 13th) and join us, people across the nation and organizations from AAHSA to AARP to Easter Seals in asking your congress person to support making long-term care reform part of health care reform so that people can live well in the places they most want to call home.
Making your voice heard is easy:
1. Call (800) 687-3813 from 8 a.m to 6 p.m. EST. You will be asked where you live and then you will be patched to one of your Senator’s offices, where you can leave a message (sample message below).
2. After you make your call, go online to this link and you can send an easy, ready-made email to your Representative and Senators. Sample Script:
"Hello. I’m calling to ask the senator to help make sure long-term services and supports are part of health care reform. Including long-term services and supports in health care reform will achieve greater efficiency, promote personal responsibility and sustain our safety net programs like Medicaid. We need a national solution for this national problem. I thank the senator in advance for demonstrating leadership on this issue. We must make it affordable to care. Thank you."
THANK YOU!
What’s Your Idea of a Next-Generation Retirement Community?
Ecumen-Managed Church Senior Housing in Sandpoint, Idaho
Five Next-Generation Retirement Communities. That’s U.S. News and World Report’s new article that outlines five niche communities for baby boomers [See Below].
Question For Changing Aging Readers: What other opportunities do you see for "retirement" housing?
Five Next-Generation Retirement Communities According to U.S. News and World Report:
1. Senior housing on college campuses
2. Feng Shui senior housing
3. Senior housing specializing in gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender residents
4. Senior housing for country music lovers
5. Assisted living RV communities
Congregational senior housing is missing from this list. Also fitness and wellness are increasingly becoming parts of people’s lives. What about welllness senior housing? NASCAR senior housing???? … .
The Alzheimer's Project: May 10, 11 and 12
It’s the second most feared disease behind cancer Alzheimer’s.
"The Alzheimer’s Project," a four-part HBO documentary, looks at the faces behind the disease and the hope for a cure. It will air May 10, 11 and 12. This series dramatically raises awareness of the Alzheimer crisis facing our nation and the need for urgent action.
Maria Shriver narrates Monday’s entitled "Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am." Her father Sargent Shriver has Alzheimer’s. He, of course, was a leading shaper of The Great Society in the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration, which led to Medicare and Medicaid. We sent pe
May 13: Mark Your Calendars for Another Long-Term Care Financing Call to Congress
Please join us on May 13th for our next call-in to Congress re: making long-term care services and supports part of health care reform. Last time you helped generate 5,000 calls to Congress. We can do even better on May 13th…
Congressional committees are drafting health care reform legislation, and we expect to see their proposals over the next month. In order to ensure long-term services and supports are included in these proposals, we are inviting you to join us in a Congressional Call-In Day on May 13, 2009.
Beginning at 8 a.m. Eastern time, please call toll-free to (800) 687-3813. Tell your legislators why long-term services and supports are a must for both you and the people you serve.
Sample Phone Script
"Hello. I’m calling to ask the senator to help make sure long-term services and supports are part of health care reform. Including long-term services and supports in health care reform will achieve greater efficiency, promote personal responsibility and sustain our safety net programs like Medicaid. We need a national solution for this national problem. I thank the senator in advance for demonstrating his leadership. We must make it affordable to care. Thank you."
Proposed Minnesota Assisted Living Provision is Ageist: Please Help Stop It
Sometimes lawmakers forget seniors are people, too:
If a 40-year-old wants to move to an apartment, there’s no governmental agency that makes that person go through government counseling and get "certified" to move. But that’s exactly what is being proposed in Minnesota for seniors who decide to make a move to an apartment that has assisted living services. It is in the Senate version of the Health and Human Services Omnibus Budget Bill (HF1362/SF695) currently being negotiated in Saint Paul.
Ecumen supports efforts to provide seniors with in-depth information on their options. In fact, in Minnesota, assisted living providers are required to give prospective residents the number for the Senior LinkAge Line to contact if they’d like to explore various options. However, this proposed legislation is overreach and is going down the road of treating seniors as people who can’t make any decision on their own.
"Mandatory counseling" impacts a person’s right to choose where he or she wishes to live. And it does it for the simple reason that the person is a senior. We believe older adults should be able to choose whom to involve in their decision-making and should not be required to go to a governmental agency for counseling.
Minnesota Changing Aging readers can contact legislators directly by going here.
Conference committee members you can contact are:
Representatives:
Tom Huntley
Jim Abeler
Karen Clark
Larry Hosch
Paul Thissen
Senate:
Linda Berglin
Tony Lourey
Yvonne Prettner-Solon
Julie Rosen
Kathy Sheran
America’s First Muslim Adult Day Services Center Opens in Minneapolis
Posted by Ecumen’s Helen Rickman
Siblings Nohad Loabneh and Abed Lawabni, who reside in the Twin Cities, are opening the country’s first Muslim Adult Day Services Center in Minneapolis and holding an open house on May 2nd.
Nohad and Abed immigrated to the United States in the 1980s and later formed the Middle Eastern Integrated Services Association (MEISA) Care Group, a provider of health care and social services.
Like so many new senior services ideas, this one grew out of personal experience. Nohad and Abed were searching on behalf of an elderly relative for a local Adult Day Center that honored Muslim religious practices and also could provide bilingual services. Not finding the fit they decided to establish the Senior Social Club, an adult day center serving the Minneapolis Somali and Islamic community.
The Club operates seven days a week and affords seniors the chance to interact socially with others, enjoy a halal meal and participate in a variety of activities through out the day. The Senior Social Club offers the typical array of activities of an adult day center with offerings including round-trip transportation, preparation for citizenship exam classes, computer and English language learning, healthy cooking classes, social worker services, and meals prepared in accordance with Islamic practices. It also will have bilingual services for Arabic, Somali, Urdu and Hindi-speaking seniors.
The center, located at 970 E. Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, is having an open house Saturday evening May 2nd. For further information, contact Nohad Loabneh at 612.876.0680 or info@meisagroup.com. Or visit them online here.
Meet America’s Oldest Man - Living Fully at 112
Welcome to the new normal … There are over 80,000 centenarians in the U.S. today; we’re anticipated to have 1 million by 2050. In 1960, we only had about 3,500.
Here’s video of Steve Hartman of CBS interviewing Walter Bruening of Great Falls, Montana, who is America’s oldest man and a person living fully at 112.
Minnesota Senior Services Rally, April 28th: Come Join Us!
Fill The Rotunda
Join Ecumen and many others at next Tuesday’s (April 28) Senior Services Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol at 1:30 p.m. The rally’s call to Governor Pawlenty and state legislators is "Prioritize Senior Services." The rally is sponsored by Aging Services of Minnesota, Care Providers of Minnesota, AARP and the Senior Federation.
To RSVP, please email Jen McNertney of Aging Services of Minnesota at: jmcnertney@agingservicesmn.org
If You Were Developing Senior Housing, What Would You Do?
Construction of Ecumen's Lakeshore Community Duluth
Would love your insights … If you were going to develop senior housing tomorrow, what would you want to be part of it? What would make you want to live there? Does it have technology? Is it on a college campus? Is your senior housing your own home? Is it intergenerational? Does it provide health care on site?
Throw everything and anything against the wall!