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WASHINGTON, May 22, 2014 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA is accepting applications for grants to enhance telecommunications and broadcast services in rural areas.

"This funding will help small, rural communities across the country gain access to communications technologies to improve health, education and other services," Vilsack said. "It will help open doors to the global marketplace. It will deliver specialized medical care and educational services. It will ensure that public television stations can fully convert to digital signals and transmit public safety, health, educational and cultural programming in isolated areas."

The funding is available from the Community Connect Grant Program, the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program, and the Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program.

Through the Community Connect Grant Program, USDA plans to provide up to $13 million to fund broadband in unserved areas to support economic growth and deliver enhanced educational, health care and public safety services. Awardees must serve an area where broadband does not exist, provide a community center with broadband access, and offer broadband service to all residential and business customers. Details are on page 29405 of today's Federal Register.

USDA has had many successes through this program. Since it was created in 2003, USDA has approved more than $142 million in more than 240 Community Connect projects to bring broadband service to rural communities that lacked it.

For example, Rural Development awarded @Link Services, LLC a $544,164 Community Connect Grant to provide broadband services to Lima, Okla. Many institutions there have benefited, including the new volunteer fire department, the K-12 school, and the new community center.

Also in a notice in today's Federal Register, USDA is making available up to $19.3 million in Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) program grants to fund access to rural education, training and health care resources. The DLT program finances telecommunications-enabled equipment and advanced technologies for people who live and work in rural areas. Since 2009, USDA has invested almost $150 million in the program. These investments complement other USDA efforts to improve rural communications.

Details of Distance Learning funding being made available today are on page 29399 of the Federal Register.

In the Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program, USDA will provide up to $2 million as part of the Department's continued support of rural telecommunications and broadcast services. Funds can be used to acquire, lease or install equipment or software to complete the transition to digital broadcast signals.

While rural stations broadcast their main transmitter signal digitally, many also have translators serving small communities or isolated areas, and these still need to transition from analog to digital. Some rural areas also need fill-in translators, in cases when the signal reception from a main transmitter is lost. These Public Television grants will support those stations to ensure all rural households and businesses receive public television station transmissions. Details are on page 29409 of the Federal Register.

USDA will offer special consideration to Community Connect and Distance Learning and Telemedicine applications that contain at least one end-user site within a trust area or a Tribal jurisdictional area.

President Obama's plan for rural America has brought about historic investment and resulted in stronger rural communities. Under the President's leadership, these investments in housing, community facilities, businesses and infrastructure have empowered rural America to continue leading the way - strengthening America's economy, small towns and rural communities.

USDA's investments in rural communities support the rural way of life that stands as the backbone of our American values. President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack are committed to a smarter use of Federal resources to foster sustainable economic prosperity and ensure the government is a strong partner for businesses, entrepreneurs and working families in rural communities.

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Seventy percent of people age 65 and older will need long-term care at some point in their lives, according to a 2014 study by CareScout, a division of Genworth Financial Services.

"But that doesn't mean they have to sacrifice their quality of life," says Peder Johnsen, CEO of Concordis Senior Living, www.concordisseniorliving.com, which owns, operates and develops senior housing communities.

"In fact, a person who needs some assistance with day-to-day living will often find he or she is much happier in a good assisted-living community with an atmosphere that reminds them of their former home."

And it doesn't have to be outrageously priced, notes Johnsen, a third-generation ALF operator whose family pioneered the contemporary congregate community model.

The median price for a private, one-bed home in an ALF community is $42,000, he says, citing the CareScout report. By contrast, a semi-private nursing home bed costs a median $77,000 a year.

But it's up to prospective residents and their families to ascertain the quality of the community and whether it's a good match for the person who will be living there.

"ALFs are not federally regulated and states vary widely on the breadth of oversight they provide, so you can't necessarily rely on the law," Johnsen says. "And don't rely on salespeople either - that's the biggest mistake people make."

There are, however, a number of easy ways to see if a home has a truly caring atmosphere and well-trained staff.

Johnsen offers these tips:

•  Ask to see the home's state licensing survey, an assessment that usually includes inspections, audits, interviews with residents, etc.

Every state has an ALF licensing agency and all have some form of survey system for ensuring that certain standards of quality are met, according to the Assisted Living Federation of America.

"Requirements vary from state to state about how often the surveys are conducted and how the public can access the reports, but no matter what state you live in, you should be able to ask the ALF for its most recent report, or obtain it from the licensing agency," Johnsen says.

The surveys will tell you if problems were found - or not - and what the ALF did to address them.

•  Visit the ALF during non-business hours.

Go before breakfast or after dinner - times when the administrators aren't around. What's the atmosphere? How do employees behave with the residents?

"That's a good time to talk to residents, too," Johnsen says.

Be a "mystery shopper," he suggests. Pretend you're just visiting the community - not scouting it out as a prospective customer.

•  Ascertain how truly "homelike" the community is.

In your own home, if you don't feel like eating breakfast at 7:30 a.m., you don't have to. You can have breakfast at 10. You can get snacks when you want them.

"Depending on what's important to your loved one, there are potentially many rules that can affect how 'at home' a person feels," Johnsen says. "Some communities allow residents to have pets, others don't. Some provide lots of activities. At some, residents can quickly and easily arrange for transportation or a service like hair styling."

Not every community can offer everything, he notes. That's why it's important to look for those features that are especially important to your loved one.

About Peder Johnsen

Peder Johnsen is the CEO of Concordis Senior Living, www.concordisseniorliving.com, which owns, operates and develops senior housing communities. He's a third-generation assisted-living specialist whose grandfather and father built one of the first contemporary-style ALFs in Florida more than 30 years ago. Johnsen took over administration of two small facilities at age 18. Today, he specializes the full spectrum of ALFs - from "ALF lites," where most residents live very independent lifestyles but know assisted-living services are available if they should need them, to homes specializing in care for residents with Alzheimer's and dementia. He is an industry leader in staff development and training, and has overseen the development, acquisition and financing of several communities.

Washington, D.C. - Congressman Dave Loebsack released the following statement today after the House of Representatives voted on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Management Accountability Act of 2014.

"The men and women who volunteered to serve and defend our nation deserve only the best care when they return from service. Like many others, I have been outraged at the reports of alleged preventable deaths and subsequent cover ups at various VA health centers across the country. While the accountability included in the legislation that passed today is important, there are additional steps that the VA should take to address this problem. They include : hiring more medical specialists to better address the increasing influx of veterans entering the VA health system; reauthorizing the Health Professional Scholarship Program; strengthening and increasing partnerships with community hospitals and university hospitals to take advantage of all medical personnel in a community; and broadening telemedicine pilot programs that allow veterans access to care from the comfort of their home.

"As a parent of military children these recent events are deeply disturbing to me. I believe that the VA must do everything in their power to rectify this situation and I will work to ensure they have the resources they need to prevent anything further from harming our veterans."