Database for disasters? Texas bill aims to up emergency preparedness in senior living

Yahoo

01-05-2025

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Through summer heat and winter storms in recent years, state lawmakers have often weighed how to best keep older Texans safe during power outages. Devastation during Hurricane Beryl in 2024 revived the push for more backup power generation and other emergency preparedness efforts.
Dr. Suleman Lalani, D-Sugar Land, said his constituents reported 'heartbreaking' stories about older people 'left completely alone' in independent senior living facilities and complexes during the summer storm.
BACKGROUND: Push to require backup generators at senior living facilities after Texas winter storm
'Abandoned by property managers, and the families feeling misled or betrayed,' he told lawmakers on the House Human Services Committee this week. 'Imagine an elderly grandmother on a fixed income, trapped alone on the fourth floor of a building because the elevators no longer worked.'
The committee heard testimony on Tuesday about Lalani's proposal to create a statewide database of emergency preparedness plans for senior living complexes. He said he is particularly concerned with independent senior living facilities, which are not regulated by the state in the same way as nursing homes or assisted living but often market to people ages 55 or 65 and older.
Protecting seniors in storms: Texas lawmakers eye emergency preparedness after Beryl
In an interview last fall about the proposed legislation, now known as HB 863, Lalani told KXAN he believes a database of these health and safety plans could help state and local first responders or emergency management agencies better coordinate their response to these facilities during disasters.
'We are talking about seniors that have disabilities. They have challenges; they have chronic illnesses. We had people with amputations stuck on the third floor. We had people with memory impairment,' he told KXAN at the time.
MORE: How many Texas senior living facilities have backup power? HHSC reveals survey results
Carmen Tilton, the Vice President of Public Policy at the Texas Assisted Living Association, testified against the bill this week. She said the bill, as written, directs landlords to do more than they legally can or should. She pointed to parts of the Texas Property Code, that regulates landlord-tenant relationships, and said if landlords are providing a certain level of care to older tenants, they would essentially need to be licensed as a long-term care facility and regulated further by the state.
'This is a significant shift in how the Texas legislature has traditionally viewed the relationship between a landlord and a tenant. The expectation in an independent living facility is that the resident is 'independent.' In that independence, it is expected that a resident would manage their own personal needs, even during an emergency event,' she said.
PREVIOUS: Some Austin nursing homes, assisted living facilities still without power
She also noted concerns about a provision in the bill that would also require these independent facilities to have an emergency generator or another source of backup power.
For years, KXAN investigators have followed efforts to require more backup power at places where older people live. Some types of facilities are already required to have a certain amount of backup generation in at least parts of the building, but many previous efforts to increase or expand these requirements have failed. Opponents of these efforts, including Tilton and the association, argue the move is cost-prohibitive and not practical for many smaller homes.
In 2022, Tilton told KXAN investigators, 'You can't just put forth this mandate and expect everybody to make it, particularly when some of our providers in rural and underserved communities are just barely hanging on.'
RELATED: After Hurricane Beryl, Texas lawmakers push for generators at senior living facilities
She reiterated those concerns in Tuesday's hearing about the impact of increased regulation on an already strained supply of facilities to care for Texas' growing older population.
Tilton and a representative from LeadingAge both applauded parts of the bill that aimed to improve communication and assistance to these types of locations during disasters. They said their organizations would be open to working with Lalani.
The bill's author insisted the state could not 'do nothing.'
'HB 863 is not just a wish or a want. It is a desperate need,' he said.
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