Archive for April, 2010
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
If I start getting boring on this subject please let me know! I had lunch with my 85 year old mystery shopper, Edna, today. Edna is well-suited to mystery shopping—she worked on the Enigma project in London during the Second World War. In an interesting twist, so did her father but because of the enormous secrecy shrouding the Enigma project, neither one of them knew about the other’s work until years later.
Edna lives independently and is in great health, although she had a scare a few months ago. Often we in the industry like to say that a scare is just the thing to drive people into the arms of the supportive housing industry, but not Edna! She’s got a pacemaker now and feels better than she has in years.
I asked her if she would consider moving into a project like the one we were touring if she had buckets of money but she said no. She said she was not interested in giving up anything she has now to move to “God’s waiting room”. By the way Edna highly recommends a British TV show of the same name.
That’s the problem in a nutshell—people don’t think of retirement housing as a wonderful carefree way to spend their golden years; they think of it as the last stop before death.
Can we change this view, even a little? Here’s Edna’s suggestion for an appealing tag line: “Have the freedom to do whatever you like. Join us for an endless series of adventures.” That sounds good doesn’t it?
Tags: Age of entry, Aging, Assisted Living, Housing Development, Housing Options, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, Supportive housing
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Monday, April 26th, 2010
I spent a few days in the warm sunshine in Winnipeg last week and toured several supportive housing projects while there. If I were writing this in Manitoba I would say I had toured several assisted living projects, because the terminology is reversed in our two provinces. Manitobans describe projects that provide hospitality services and personal care as supportive housing; projects that provide only hospitality services are called assisted living.
One project in particular caught my attention—The Canoe Club, adjacent to what used to be a very popular recreational facility in Winnipeg years ago. The golf course is still there, but little else remains of the club’s former glory.
The Canoe Club is a 102 unit project, owned and operated by the Caleb Group. The Caleb Group, which is headquartered in Saskatoon, owns 12 projects across Canada and is busily developing others. Two of their projects are located in Winnipeg—Cathedrale Manor in St Boniface and The Canoe Club, in St Vital.
As all faithful readers of this blog know, I have toured a LOT of seniors’ housing projects all over North America but I was very impressed with The Canoe Club. It is quite beautiful—no other word will do. Interestingly, people can buy or rent any unit in the building, although the Caleb Group intends to retain ownership of a majority of the units, which will be offered on a rental basis. This is a smart move for the Caleb Group and for all The Canoe Club residents, owners and renters alike.
More on The Canoe Club in future posts.
Tags: Assisted Living, Housing Development, Housing Options, Rentals, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, Supportive housing, Winnipeg
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Friday, April 23rd, 2010
As mentioned in one of my recent posts, I’ve just spent a considerable amount of time in Alberta. At one of the retirement communities in Calgary (retirement community Alberta-style, meaning quite a lot of personal care services are delivered on site), the average age of entry is currently 87! They recently had a 98 year old move in! Forgive the excessive use of exclamation marks but in light of one of the industry’s holy grails—reducing the average age of entry into service-enriched housing—these are discouraging trends. Part of this phenomenon is undoubtedly due to the recession. Our industry is less need-driven than we thought, at least it is when house prices and the value of investment portfolios fall at the same time. But what will happen when the recession, or more importantly, people’s memories of the recession, end? Will we have a flock of 80 year olds clamouring to move in?
Maybe not. I used to think we really could reduce the average age of entry by focusing on fitness and wellness, including full kitchens and washer/dryers in units, doing away with assigned seating and defined meal times, letting people choose whether they wanted to eat one, two, or three meals in the dining room or the bistro, running a full slate of educational events on-site and off-site, hiring concierges…the list goes on.
Now I am not so sure but stay tuned! It is a subject we will often return to in coming posts.
Tags: Age of entry, Aging, Housing Development, Housing Options, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
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Thursday, April 15th, 2010
I have a few favorite ads I like to point to as bad examples of marketing to the older senior crowd (75+). One shows a 60 something very buff man in a bathing suit standing beside his surf board. The project in question is not an active adult golf community on the west coast of Vancouver Island where the picture might just be barely plausible (although the buff man would have to be wearing a wetsuit to withstand the cold water) — it is a supportive housing project where people get two meals a day, weekly laundry, housekeeping, and an emergency response system. No one remotely resembling this man lives in the project, or will ever live in the project. Another of my favorites pictures is of a youngish couple (65-70 I’d guess) in full Mexican regalia, clearly ready to party. Those ads won’t appeal to the real target market (generally 80 year old widows), and if by chance a surfer should show up at the door he will know instantly that he is in the wrong place. Active, independent seniors do not generally want to live in places where many residents are frailer than they are. Confusing or misleading ads serve no useful purpose whatsoever.
Sometimes ads feature the wrong people with the best of intentions. For example, a non-profit project I know included pictures of visible minorities in their ads for a while, trying to convey the message that they were an inclusive and welcoming project. Obviously that is a laudable goal, but the fact that there were almost no visible minorities in that particular community meant running the risk of not appealing to the true target market.
Tags: Advertsising, Aging, Housing Development, Housing Options, Marketing, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in Marketing, Senior Housing | Comments Off
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
A non-profit society in a small community in British Columbia built a three storey seniors’ residence a few years ago, the first building in town to have an elevator. Some of the people who moved in had never been in an elevator in their lives. Understandably, they found the whole experience rather unnerving.
For years there was an urban myth circulating about seniors and high rises. They were alleged not to like them because they were afraid of tall buildings (or something like that). Of course that is not true at all, or at least no truer of seniors than any other group. Seniors like a good view just as much as the next person. And, like everyone else, they are comforted by the difficulty of burning down a concrete building.
Tags: Housing Development, Housing Options, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
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Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
I’ve just come back from Calgary. Every time I visit that city I am always struck by the differences between the seniors’ housing market there and the seniors’ housing market here in Vancouver. The projects all look the same, basically, the big difference is the amount of personal care provided in most Calgary projects. There are a few that cater only to people who require hospitality services (meals, housekeeping, laundry), but the majority provide extensive personal care services, most of which is paid for by Alberta Health Services. Some places provide up to four hours of care per day. In Vancouver, care at this level would never be found outside the doors of a residential care facility.
And it’s all due to policies of the Alberta government, which is placing a very heavy emphasis on caring for frail seniors in places other than nursing homes. In complete contrast, the BC government funds nothing other than nursing homes, although for a few years they too espoused the merits of assisted living as something of a substitution model for long term care. But that was then and this is now.
The Alberta model is probably cheaper, at least for the government, although questions have been raised about that. From the perspective of seniors themselves, the model results in much more mixing of frail and less frail people than you would find in most Vancouver projects. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. I will come back to this subject in a later post.
Tags: Aging in place, Housing Development, Housing Options, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
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