"Certainly that's important. You have what amounts to a nursing home at Togus."
"Well, it seems to me that's an area that we should be talking about in Washington."
"One of the concerns--and I've heard this when I've met with their agencies, particularly in rural Maine, is an epidemic of loneliness."
"Everything we talked about still comes back to workforce, doesn't it? Home-based care, respite care. It's all having the people."
"We've really got to work on that because it would be awful to have somebody who's ready, wants a mission, wants to do it but they can't wait for nine months or a year."
"You're dipping into savings to pay the rent."
"Could you define expansion? Are we talking 20, 30 percent, 40 percent? I mean----"
"I think Brunswick or Portland is halfway between Madawaska and New York City. People don't realize how tall Maine is."
"I like the idea. In other words, additional federal funds not generally but targeted toward workforce retention?"
"If you can't--if you can't get enough people, you're not going to be able to meet the staffing ratios which could mean a loss of capacity rather than a gain for the veterans."
"If we don't have the people to staff them, it ain't gonna work."