Posts Tagged ‘Independent Living’

Nightmare in Nanaimo?

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

A recent article in the Nanaimo Daily News about seniors housing suggests that the average Nanaimo senior can afford 37.5 months of assisted living. And after that? The article leaves it to your imagination. Ice floes maybe?

But perhaps the situation is not as dire as the article suggests. For example, the average cost of assisted living per month is indicated to be $6,000. The average sale price of a condo in Nanaimo is indicated to be $225,000 resulting in the aforementioned 37.5 months.

Where exactly the reporter found that $6,000 unit is a good question. I have never heard of a $6,000 assisted living unit in Nanaimo. And most people who move to a retirement community don’t need assisted living anyway—they need housing that provides meals, housekeeping, laundry etc but they don’t need the level of care provided in assisted living.

According to CMHC, the average cost of an independent living unit in Nanaimo (one that provides meals, housekeeping, laundry etc) is $2,553—a long way from $6,000. And many people don’t move from a condo to seniors housing—they move from detached houses, the average value of which in Nanaimo is currently $356,000. And people use their income to finance their monthly housing costs, not just the proceeds of house sales. The article says the average after-tax income for 65+ people is $25,996. In fact, the average income of all 65+ households in Nanaimo is $46,471; of owners is $50,334 (80% of 65+ households in Nanaimo are homeowners).

All this is not to say that low income seniors, especially renters, don’t face serious housing challenges. They do. But to scare people by saying that the average senior in Nanaimo will only be able to afford to stay in a seniors’ community for 37.5 months is highly misleading. What is needed is a mix of options, ones that take into consideration peoples means before lumping them all together into one big pot of seniors.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Housing Market, Senior Housing | No Comments »

Baby Boomers (one more time)

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Emmylou Harris has just released a new record which, by all accounts, is excellent. Reading the reviews I learned that Emmylou, who is 64, lives with her mother, who is 89, just outside Nashville. That got me thinking, yet again, about the future housing behaviour of the boomers. Coincidentally we have been cleaning out files and found a 2005 article from Australia written by Val O’Toole called Baby Boomers Housing Demands. The article references psychologist Erik Erikson, who theorized that when people are enmeshed in one stage of life it is very hard to foresee the next. That is certainly true of the boomers—it is probably true of everyone. When you are, say, 60 and fit, how can you possibly foresee what you might want when you are 85 and frail? People are always saying the boomers will be different when they are 85 but I am not so sure. It’s one reason I am looking forward to actually being 85—finding out how the story ends.

The Australian article speculates about all the possibilities and concludes that typical older boomers, like Emmylou Harris and her mum will choose to remain in the family home no matter how inappropriate it may be. That certainly mirrors the situation in North America as well.

But that is partly a matter of options, or lack of options. Today there isn’t much choice for mobile seniors beyond active adult type housing and service-enriched type housing. There are a few cohousing communities around, but very few other examples of more communal type living arrangements. That is one area I think is going to be a much more prominent part of the landscape in future years.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Housing Market, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

Food and grab bars

Friday, April 8th, 2011

I realize that I have posted about these two issues on numerous occasions but they are both something of bêtes noires for me.

I have been travelling a lot and have eaten at several seniors’ projects. In one of them (which will remain nameless) the food was execrable. It isn’t often you get to use “execrable” in a sentence and I would have been glad of the opportunity if it weren’t for the fact that because I couldn’t eat the food I was extremely hungry.

I mentioned this to my good friend and colleague Rita Thibault at Westbridge Group Valuation Partner and she said: “Aren’t people trained to cook decent food for large numbers of people?” Good question. One of the residents at a sister project of the aforementioned community, where the food was much better but apparently still not up to snuff, commented that if the chef really were trained at some school the school ought to be shut down.

It consistently amazes and astonishes me that operators serve such lousy food. Even in projects that are fully funded and also full of people who can’t afford to move anywhere else, you would think simple human decency would lead these operators to serve decent food.

Then yesterday I ate a community that prides itself on its food and rightly so. My lunch was delicious. Food costs here are $7.50 per person per day, which is on the high side, but not only are the residents happy, the community generates a lot of revenue by catering outside events.

Enough said about food, at least for today, and on to grab bars. I have been in two seniors communities recently that have no grab bars in the bathroom because these communities are intended for “independent seniors”. That’s just dumb. Even hotels are better than that, or at least some hotels. I am currently staying in a brand new mid-range hotel and there is not a grab bar in site although the bathtub is very high. How many people do you think actually have baths in hotels? Very few I imagine. Why don’t they install showers instead? Even if there is some logic to the bathtubs, why no grab bars? Grab bars make tubs safer for everybody, to say nothing of the one in four British Columbians who are going to be over 65 in no time flat.

So there you have it – my rants for today.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Marketing, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

Are Publicly Funded Campuses of Care a Fraud in British Columbia?

Friday, March 25th, 2011

For quite a long time health authorities in BC have been extolling the virtues of the campuses of care they are creating where people can “age in place”. Most of the campuses are combined assisted living/residential care combinations—there are very few examples in BC of true campuses where housing for independent seniors (no services at all) is part of the campus. That model—the full spectrum—is common in the US, where it is known as Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs). The reason there are so few true campuses in Canada is because of our health care system. US seniors buy into CCRCs so they can be assured of access to the kind of care they need, no matter what it might be, as long as they live. Canadian seniors generally assume that the government will look after them when they get old and frail.

Most of the campuses in BC are subsidized by the government—“funded”, in the jargon. Access to funded spaces, residential care beds or assisted living units, is controlled through health authority case managers. Case managers are responsible for the needs of all the people in their areas, not just the people who may live on a campus. That means that there is absolutely no guarantee that if you live in an assisted living unit and you need a higher level of care that you will be able to move next door.

Health authorities are very sensitive to the needs of couples who may need to separate because of different health care situations and there is a lower incidence couple separation than there used to be. But aside from some couples, the promise of aging in place on publicly funded campuses is really a fraud, at least for most people.

Unless those people who need help have the ability to pay for everything themselves, in which case they can move to a few (but only a few) true campuses of care in BC or alternatively, bring all the services they need into their current homes, aging in place can be a very tough objective to achieve.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Housing Market, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

Is ethnicity a factor in the seniors housing market?

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

We always say that it is but we would certainly be interested in generating some dialogue around this subject.
The issue arises in respect to multi-generational cultures where it is common for seniors to live with their families until they are so frail they require residential care. That is, they skip the intermediate stage of supportive housing or independent living call it what you like. This may also partly be a function of a lack of options—if you are a Chinese senior living in Burnaby, BC, which has a very high Chinese population, you would be hard pressed to find a retirement community that catered to your language and food preferences. In fact, it would be impossible.

So when are doing market studies in areas with large populations of multi-generational cultures we are always very cognizant of this factor. We are doing some work right now in an area of Vancouver where the proportion of visible minorities is 77% and who are predominantly Chinese. As it stands now this would mean that a huge segment of the market would typically not be interested in any mid-level care. Will this always be the case? How can it be changed?

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Market Studies, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

More on the integration/segregation issue

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Insights and Innovation: The State of Seniors Housing analyzes data from the 92 projects submitted to the Design for Aging Review (DFAR) in 2010. The report is a collaboration between the American Institute of Architects and Perkins Eastman Architects.

One of the insights of the report is that the traditional distinction between independent living and assisted living is becoming increasingly blurred “as a greater number of communities offer independent living plus services” as opposed to independent living as well as assisted living. For example, one of the winners was Sun City Palace Tsukaguchi in Osaka, a 760 unit CCRC that offers independent living with services as well as a skilled nursing facility, but no assisted living component. The continuum at this community is provided through increasingly supportive in-home care, rather than through transition to a designated assisted living environment. Another winner was the Villa at San Luis Rey, which has licensed all its units as assisted living but markets them as independent living with services. Blurry indeed!

The report explores many other fascinating issues and is available on-line at www.aia.org.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Housing Market, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

Top 10 Trends in Seniors Housing for 2011

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

Before I get into this, I wanted to let you know that my book The Future of Seniors Housing: Planning, Building and Operating Successful Seniors Housing Projects is now available on Amazon.ca and on eBay. I know it sounds kind of weird to think about listing new books on eBay but apparently it is quite common. Eventually we will have an ebook too and I will let you know when it is available.

In the meantime, Senior Housing News (www.seniorhousingnews.com) has released its Top 10 trends for the coming year. The # 1 trend is price increases in seniors housing due to supply constraints (ie no new supply for several years), demographics, and higher labour and material costs. That seems a bit unlikely to me. Occupancy levels in IL/AL communities in the US are still below 90% and the conventional housing market has not really recovered.

Rents in Canada ARE going up though, at least in a number of communities. Others are having interesting sales events—for example, in Victoria, Holiday is offering free rent for life to one lucky winner per month until March 31st. In Calgary, Holiday is offering $95 rent for the first month and a five year rent freeze. Holiday markets to the IL market more than most operators in Calgary and has very likely been harder hit by the recession as a result.

The # 2 trend identified by Senior Housing News is renovating people’s own homes to make them more age-friendly. They base that conclusion on a report recently released by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The report points to a growing renovation industry In the next five years, partly because of growth in the number of households moving into the 55–64 and 65+ age ranges— when homeowners typically prepare their homes for their retirement years by making aging-in-place retrofits. The Joint Centre expects that market to be particularly strong. That’s interesting because in the past, seniors have spent very little money on adapting their homes to accommodate aging in place. I will come back to this in a later post.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Housing Market, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

Thoughts on Homecare for Seniors

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

My 87 year old mother recently spent 2 weeks with us (sorry for letting my posting slip somewhat). Near the end of her visit my son asked me how long I thought she would be able to continue living independently.  She moved from the family home into an apartment eight years ago. It’s not a seniors’ apartment and she still drives. She has all her mental faculties, takes almost no drugs, and does not use any kind of mobility device, although she can’t walk long distances and she shuffles a bit because she is afraid of falling.

So: a very independent senior you might conclude and you would be half right. She IS very independent but only because my three siblings live in the same city she does and they help her a lot. My sister does all her grocery shopping for example. My brothers do various maintenance tasks for her. Without that kind of help her life would be difficult, perhaps too difficult to allow her to remain at home, where she wants to be.

My mother is fortunate to have children close by who do these things for her. But what about people who don’t have kids close by? And, what about the boomers, who, typically, have had fewer children than their parents?

One solution is virtual retirement communities. We have posted about VRCs in earlier blogs and I am convinced they will become a prominent part of the landscape in years to come. Another is intentional communities. Someone I was talking to recently told me about a group of seniors who share the same caregiver. They all live in single family houses but not on the same street. The caregiver goes from one house to the next and is increasingly getting worn out. They have now decided that the obvious solution is for all of them to live together. And that indeed IS a good solution if they can get it off the ground fast enough.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, Seniors' Housing, Virtual Retirement | Comments Off

Seniors’ Housing Projects: Location, Location, Location–How Important is it Really?

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Conventional wisdom suggests that for supportive seniors’ housing projects (meals, housekeeping, laundry etc), walking-distance proximity to stores and services is, if not essential, then at the very least extremely important. But without sitting down and doing the math, I would say that a minority of supportive seniors’ housing projects in BC are located close enough to stores and services so that people could easily walk to them. Some are in locations that are downright pastoral. Of course walking isn’t necessary for all people—many have scooters that enlarge their geographic boundaries. Scooters though are used by a small minority of seniors, meaning that walking distance is more important than scooter distance.

As well, many seniors’ housing projects have their own buses to take people around to shopping and doctors’ appointments, many have small tuck shops that sell various items, and in any case, most meals are provided on site. So why do people need to walk anywhere? I firmly believe that the answer to that question is this: even if people don’t have to walk anywhere, the fact that they could if they wanted to is an important psychological benefit. And for those people who actually do walk to the store or the bank, it’s more than just a psychological benefit—it’s a physical benefit as well.

Proximity to green space seems to be less important than proximity to stores and services. It’s always nice to have a park to walk through but half the time the weather may preclude the walk. But proximity to schools and other places where children play is almost always considered a decided advantage because it gives people something highly enjoyable to watch. Proximity to seniors’ centres is hugely advantageous, not just because it allows residents to participate in outside events and activities, but because it facilitates two-way interaction. It’s easy to invite people living in the community and using the seniors’ centre to come for meals and events at the housing project, which is one of the very best ways of keeping buildings full.  Easy access to public transportation falls into the “it goes without saying” category, whether or not people living in supportive housing projects ever actually take a city bus. Visitors might though and staff almost certainly will.

Of course finding sites that are close to stores, services, schools, public transit, and seniors’ centres is much easier said than done. When “affordably priced” is added to the list, finding a suitable site begins to verge on the miraculous, especially in centres where land is expensive.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Seniors' Housing | Comments Off

US Occupancy Rates have Declined in 11 of 12 Quarters Since 2007

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

As we have often commented in this blog, the US is light years away from Canada in terms of the quantity and quality of available research on the seniors’ housing and health care industry. The mission of the wonderful National Investment Center (NIC) is: “To advance the quality of seniors housing and care by facilitating informed investment decisions through best-in-class data, research, networking events and professional education” and they do a great job of that.

One of the many useful things they do is track occupancy data by quarter for five categories of housing and health care—freestanding IL, combined IL, freestanding AL, combined AL, and CCRC. (Remember that AL in the US is almost exclusively private pay).

A recent NIC Newsflash points out that occupancy rates for all five categories have declined more or less continuously since the first quarter of 2007, when they reached a cyclical peak of 92.3% (on average). First quarter 2010 data indicates an average occupancy rate of 88.0%.

Assisted living performed best over the period (decline of 2.7%) and freestanding IL the worst (decline of 6.2%). CCRCs ended up in the middle with a decline of 4.1%.

This is not remotely surprising. The US housing market has been hammered over the last few years. People more able to postpone a move into service-enriched housing (i.e. potential IL residents) have done exactly that.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Future, News, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off