By Steve Moran

One of the most fascinating conferences I attended this year was the Residential Assisted Living Association conference in Phoenix. I continue to believe the residential assisted living model is a growing segment of the senior living ecosystem and needs to be paid attention to.

While there I had the opportunity to interview Gene Guranio, the founder of the Residential Assisted Living Academy (a Senior Living Foresight partner) that ultimately birthed the Residential Assisted Living Association. Here is what he had to say:

And, oh by the way . . . you can join the association for free HERE.

The Beginning

I asked Gene how he got started down this path.

“I heard about it from a business perspective over 20 years ago when someone was sharing about how this can be a great way to help baby boomers in the future and at the same time make money. That was interesting but it wasn’t really until about 10 years ago when mom needed help that it became very real.”

He started looking for solutions and found a bunch of large senior living communities that felt more like a hotel than home and it was “not what mom wanted.” Gene started looking for a solution for mom, opened a six-bed assisted living community after which he knew that if it was something his mom wanted and liked there were going to be other people who wanted the same thing. That’s when he started teaching others how to do this.

Today

There were 650 attendees at the conference and many, maybe even most, are people who have not yet started their own residential assisted living community but are on the journey, and Gene and his team have taught thousands of people how to do this themselves.

Some of the folks Gene has trained have just one home and others have multiple. The level of interest in what he is teaching continues to grow.

Capital

Perhaps the biggest challenge those wanting to open residential assisted living communities is finding capital. They are working on an incubator concept that will make solving this problem a lot easier.

Room For Everyone

Gene would never suggest that residential assisted living will replace the more traditional large senior living community, it is just that it is not for everyone. He has this one area of expertise he is working on and thinking about all of the time.

You can watch the entire interview here: