By Jack Cumming

In the CCRC where I live, a particular table for breakfast is a power center. Without going into detail, it’s where many people stop by to chat with the regulars about how they feel about CCRC living and who’s doing what. It’s not all serious. Typical tidbit: What did the mascara say to the lipstick when they clashed? Let’s make up.

As Good As It Gets

The CCRC itself is beyond excellent. The multi-facility operator has an extraordinarily strong balance sheet. The building itself is first-rate and new by CCRC standards. The location is the best that can be imagined, in a village and on a beach. In short, the community has everything to make a resident happy.

Lately, though, there has been some disquiet due to interventions from the central office. It doesn’t matter whether those interventions are constructive or not. As you can imagine, they rankle some, while others don’t care. This was the topic at a recent power discussion at the power breakfast table.

Outside Interference

It began when a resident mentioned overhearing how unhappy a longstanding employee was that she was to be trained by a newly retained outside trainer. The resident thought that the outside consultant was a waste of money. That led to the following.

“When I leave here, shenanigans like this won’t be a factor.” “What do you mean?” asked a table-mate.

“My dream is that I can find a group of compatible people, and we can buy or rent a large home with many rooms. Then, my plan is to hire the best of the best from here to come work with us. We won’t need all the overhead. I think we can live better for less. That’s my dream.”

A passerby paused to ask, “Why do you think that the best employees will leave here to work for you?” The answer was telling, “They only work here because they love the relationships they have with each other and with residents. They need the benefits package, but they stay because of us. We can give them their freedom.”

That was it, or at least that was where it ended for this eavesdropper, because I was only passing by as I picked up my wife’s breakfast to bring it home to our apartment. We prefer to eat in the intimacy of home.

Hidden Hopes

Frankly, I was surprised. I had no idea that the dreamer had such dreams. She is one of those people who is rooted in our CCRC. She has lived here for many years. She is alone, and I knew that was difficult. She’s also concerned for the future when she may grow helpless and need assistance. Still, I had no idea that she dreamed of something different.

Would that more intimate, less corporate home be better? That’s hard to tell. After all, the saying is that the grass is always greener on the imagined other side of the fence. Still, many residents who leave our CCRC for local board and care homes seem to have a better experience than those who stay. It’s not uncommon for residents to leave as they decline, some to be near family, others for the more intimate care setting of a board and care.

Homelike Intimacy

Corporate operators could, of course, create those more intimate neighborhoods within a cookie-cutter CCRC, but the trend seems to be more toward scale. They could also give more independence to individual communities, allowing them the freedom of standalones but with access to support and advice as needed. But the hierarchical control model seems to be firmly entrenched.

When I got to my computer after breakfast, there was a message from a CCRC resident in Texas, who asked, “What are your thoughts on the future of non-profit single-site CCRCs versus the multi-site corporate model … scale?” Still, thinking about that breakfast chatter, I responded with one sentence, “I think that a franchise model would work well for CCRCs.”

Franchising

Now, I have to do some research to think out how that might work. It’s done well for McDonald’s, though, at least up until recently. At one time, I was enthusiastically following the efforts of Gene Guarino to help board and care facilities thrive. Sadly, Gene died much too young, but his daughter is now carrying on his work. She was interviewed recently on Foresight TV.

Grassroots care homes may become gatherings of people choosing to live together, to age together, to support each other, and to share caregivers. That might be a natural outgrowth of the Village Movement. It would be similar to how many churches came together spontaneously for fellowship. Could our breakfast dreamer, now a CCRC resident, be imagining the future of senior living? No one knows yet, but dreams are the stuff of which success is built. Can existing corporations adapt to new cultural norms and models?