Write Your Representatives

How important is your personal letter?

When an elected official gets a hand-written letter from someone they represent, it is considered that letter represents 500 people who have the same opinion but did not take the time to write.

If you would rather use the telephone to get your legislators’ contact information, call this organization: Project Vote Smart: 1-888-868-3762

How to write about cuts to IHSS

Home care providers and their clients, family members and supporters can write their legislators using the sample letter below as a guideline. Your letter is more effective when it is hand written. Each person should draft two letters one to their State Assembly Member and one to their State Senator. Also cc all your letters to Governor Jerry Brown.

You can easily get all your legislator contact information by entering your zip code (or address) here.

Sample Letter for Representatives:

You may also use these Talking Points as a guideline

Month Day, Year

The Honorable __________

California State Assembly/Senate District #_
XXXX XXXXXXXX Street , Suite XXXX
XXXXXXXXX , CA 9xxxx

Dear Assembly Member/Senator:

As a constituent, I am deeply concerned about Governor Brown’s proposal to cut $500 million from the In-Home Support Services (IHSS) program. This program allows eligible elderly, disabled and blind Californians to live safely in their own homes rather than in nursing homes.

(Describe here how your life and/or that of your client will be affected by the IHSS cuts. For example: Will your client have to move or be institutionalized, will you have to get another job to replace the hours you will lose, will you have to provide care without being paid for it, will you lose your health care, etc.)

IHSS is a budget solution, not a budget problem. It saves taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year over the cost of nursing home care. It brings the state billions of dollars in federal matching funds. It creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, not only for providers but for recipients as well. The money spent by home care providers and their clients is a tremendous contribution to our local economy.

That’s why legislators from both political parties have spoken out against further cuts to IHSS. I urge you to join them in promoting alternatives that will allow the state to continue this valuable and cost-effective program.

For one thing, it is time to create a master plan for long-term care in California that emphasizes home and community based care. By moving even a portion of the Californians currently in nursing homes to community based care through programs like IHSS, we would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Furthermore, we should take advantage of new federal programs that will provide additional funding for homecare.

I am confident that you and your colleagues can come up with creative solutions to our current budget crisis, instead of merely rubber-stamping the governor’s budget proposal.