Advocacy & Legislation
Our Goals
- Support local, state and/or Federal legislation that provide benefits to seniors in any aspect of life, including but not limited to, financial issues, health care, housing, safety, and services that assist people with disabilities.
- Support political candidates who actively espouse our focus areas and mission statement and work to address the needs of older adults and those who care for them.
- Support organizations whose goals match our focus areas.
- Advocate change of and/or enhancement of public policies and legislation that support our mission and the above focus areas and oppose those that do not.
Advocacy
20 December 2025
Letter signed onto by our network to oppose the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published in the Federal Register on November 19, 2025. The provisions of DHS’ 2022 public charge regulation (87 FR 55472) described in the NPRM as “straitjackets” are, more accurately, guardrails that safeguard the 28% of the United States population – about half of whom are U.S. citizens – living in immigrant families from arbitrary or biased application of the immigration law’s public charge provision.
1 December 2025
Letter written by CLUE and uplifted by the Gray Panthers Santa Barbara Network to urge the City of Santa Barbara to include more affordable housing units in the proposed Paseo Nuevo redevelopment.
4 May 2025
Letter the Gray Panthers Santa Barbara Network (GPSBN) submitted, strongly urging that the County include the phasing out of oil and gas projects and the denying of new oil and
gas projects in the 2030 Climate Action Plan.
25 August 2025
Letter to the County Board of Supervisors urging them to raise the wages of In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) caregivers in our county.
14 April 2025
Letter to the County Board of Supervisors urging them to continue to support Social Services and to backfill the anticipated effects of federal cuts for such services.
6 April 2025
Letter to Congressman Salud Carbajal urging him to continue to support Social Security and to oppose all attempts by the Trump Administration and DOGE to weaken or undermine the Social Security system.
21 February 2025
Letter to the County Board of Supervisors urging them to deny the Sable pipeline project and support the appeal of the Planning Commission’s Approval of Change of Owner, Operator, and Guarantor for the Santa Ynez Unit, etc.
5 December 2024
Letter to CA Governor Gavin Newsom requesting that the Sable pipeline project be denied. The Gray Panthers Santa Barbara Network signed on to this letter.
8 August 2024
Message sent to SB City Council, City Administrator and Chief of Police concerning pedestrian safety and mix of bicyclists and pedestrians on State Street.
28 October 2023
Letter to Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps regarding her legislative platform addressing seniors quality of life.
5 January 2023
As part of our mission to advocate for a clean and sustainable environment in our region, Gray Panthers of Santa Barbara has joined other local organizations in submitting a detailed letter to two federal agencies supervising the “decommissioning” (removal) of oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel. The Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (“DPEIS”) is necessary to evaluate proposed options for removal of oil platforms and related infrastructure and to fully consider their respective environmental consequences. This detailed 20 page letter drafted by the Environmental Defense Center (EDC).
18 October 2022
1 August 2022
Part of the mission of the Gray Panthers SB Network is to work towards increasing safe, affordable and accessible housing for seniors. In support of that goal the Board of Directors has sent the following letter to members of the Santa Barbara County BOS and to members of local city councils, urging that needs of older adults be part of each local Housing Element Plan.
24 March 2022
A message sent to local government officials asking that the need for closed-captioning for public meetings be made available as it is especially useful to inform senior adults of local government discussions and actions:
29 November 2021
Letter sent to Goleta Water Board Directors in support of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate they adopted.