Dear Friend, 

With Congress back in session following the October work period, we had an opportunity to participate in some exciting meetings with Minnesotans in Washington!

We attended an award ceremony at the Pentagon for a very special Minnesotan who is doing incredible work to support our service members stationed overseas. St. Cloud native Becky Carlson was in Washington to receive the Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher Distinguished Civilian Humanitarian Award from the U.S. Air Force for her work with her non-profit Becky’s Troop Care Packages, an organization she founded to honor her brother who passed away while serving our nation in the Vietnam War.

Since 2003, Becky, and her many volunteers, have sent thousands of care packages filled with snacks, magazines, and messages from home to active-duty service members stationed abroad. We’re glad we had the opportunity to attend the award ceremony to celebrate Becky and are grateful for all her work to support our men and women in uniform.

We also had the chance to meet with outgoing St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis and present him with the Congressional Record text of a speech we gave in his honor earlier this year. Throughout his tenure as Mayor, Dave has been a great partner to our office on joint infrastructure projects and supporting our work on the COP House program. Thank you, Dave, for your partnership and years of service to St. Cloud, Stearns County, and the state of Minnesota.

Finally, early last week we sent a letter to Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN) 23 Director Robert McDivitt voicing our concerns over recent changes to the Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) program which have significantly impacted access to home-based care and transportation services for Minnesota veterans.

The changes to the HCBS system have led to veterans losing access to important services such as weekly home visits and transportation services. Another Minnesota veteran, who lives alone and previously relied on home-care agency visits for basic assistance around the house, reported to our office that he was abruptly denied access to these services with no explanation. 

This is simply unacceptable. Our veterans deserve the best possible care our country has to offer and shouldn’t have to face burdensome hurdles to receive it. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure that our veterans have access to these important services and look forward to working with Director McDivitt to address these policy changes.

As we head into the holiday season, remember that our office is here to serve you. If we can ever be of assistance to you or your family, please reach out to our office in Otsego at (763) 241-6848 or Chaska at (952) 262-2999.

Sincerely,