By Jack Cumming
Senior living has a bright future, but it won’t be the same industry we are familiar with today. Why? The industry today is dominated by interests other than those of the customers they serve. That’s a bit like medicine, in which the doctor prescribes unpleasant medicine. The difference is that the doctor is trusted to want what’s best for the patient.
You Buy It, We Own It
In many senior living communities, residents sell their homes to use their ownership equity to invest equity capital in “not-for-profit” enterprises. Those homeowners give up ownership for a contract license to live in a facility owned by others. Those “others” make the decisions and set the rules, and the residents advise and comply. It’s not surprising that most people prefer to avoid it.
Other data suggest that it’s not that old people want to isolate themselves alone in a single-family home, though they may cherish that home, and the alternative can seem like the end of the road. They may also fear being warehoused and forgotten in a facility. Cohousing offers an alternative. Cohousing tends to have a specific connotation related to “intentional communities,” but in a broader sense, it encompasses cooperative, condominium, and informally shared housing.
When I was single at midlife, I lived in a cooperative apartment building and shared my apartment with two roommates. That was two forms of cohousing in one. Believe me, that was a far cry from living institutionalized in a care home for older adults. Cohousing is not specifically for older people. It can be part of social living.
Just as multi-family housing has evolved to have many forms, from luxury housing with resident ownership to low-income housing for the indigent and near-indigent, so senior housing, beginning with Life Plan Communities (CCRCs), may evolve into cohousing. That could be a popular transformation, and paradoxically, it can also be lucrative.
Cohousing, when done right, is a living, breathing community. Older people are welcome, but they’re not institutionalized. They’re full members of the community with self-determination and self-respect intact, without their having to defer to a management that lives somewhere else.
More Than a Building
A popular blog, Seth’s Godin’s, recently wrote, “We hire architects to design expensive buildings, but we design expensive human interactions as an afterthought.” Does that resonate with you when you think about today’s senior living? Go to an industry conference (and there are myriad senior living conferences) and you’ll find architects, along with financiers and developers, prominent in the exhibit hall and on the agenda.
The financier/developer mindset is very different from the consumer mindset among those for whom congregate living can be life-enhancing. The exhibit hall group is looking for financial opportunity. They hope to find a high-return asset class as, say, a precious metals miner might muck an underground calcite vein to extract silver or gold. The rest of the people are just looking for the best life they can find for the rest of their days.
Many options are fantasies. For some, the party life at Margaritaville may appeal … for a short time. For others, life on the road with a recreation vehicle may seem idyllic … for a short time. Then, there’s living on a yacht in a marina, exotic … for a short time. Recently, perpetual cruising on a residential cruise ship was a dream, now jaded.
Beyond Fantasy
Most people just want a place they can call their own with neighbors they like and a feeling of safety and security. They want a place where they belong and can have purpose. That’s more like cohousing than most of the choices today. Babysitting the neighbors’ children can give purpose. Preparing food for communal meals gives purpose. Sharing in community decisions gives a voice that corporate hierarchies deny.
There are attributes like these in the emerging village movement in which those who are aging stay home but come together in “villages” for social activities and mutual assistance. That helps maintain self-determination and self-respect during years of transition. Many “villages” attract volunteers who help older people with transportation and other needs.
Villages, though, fall short as age renders some oldsters dependent on assistance. Many people somehow do stay put until the end in homes they love and where they feel they belong. For some, it’s a choice; for others, it’s all they can afford. Having supportive neighbors nearby can make the difference.
The Wealth Paradox
Recently, Idrees Karloon wrote in The Atlantic Monthly, “Over the past 40 or so years, American wealth has grown ever more concentrated among the oldest generations. In 1989, Americans over age 55 held 56 percent of it; today, they hold 74 percent. During that same period, the share of wealth held by Americans under 40 has shrunk by nearly half, from 12 to 6.6 percent.”
That’s a stunning statistic and one that the senior living industry would do well to heed. Some oldsters are indigent, but others die rich. That brings us back to the cohousing opportunity. Not unexpectedly, Berkeley, CA, has some intriguing cohousing projects. The most recent one is Berkeley Moshav. Berkeley Moshav characterizes itself as a Jewish Village open to all backgrounds and family types.
Not Just for Hippies
Cohousing can be attractive for people who are aging and who want a community-oriented life. The cohousing model avoids the disenfranchisement that can often result from age-restricted care enterprises like most CCRCs. Click here for an AARP study of how cohousing can be more fulfilling than institutionalization.
It’s not hard to imagine struggling CCRCs repurposed as cohousing. First to go would be the age restrictions, though obviously, the communities would remain primarily for older people, as most of the existing residents would stay put. Next to go would be controlling management, replaced perhaps by the same managers, but as agents for the residents instead of for corporate.
Give People What They Want
The Cohousing Association of the United States notes that “senior cohousing is growing fast as baby boomers embrace it.” Cohousing combines private, accessible housing with shared common spaces and collective management, fostering social connection and mutual support.
No wonder boomers like cohousing. Consider the alternative. Few people dream of paying high upfront entrance fees, high monthly “rents,” complex contractual obligations, loss of autonomy, risk of facility financial failure, the stigma of an old folks’ home, or the finality of making a “last move.”
Given the compelling rationale of these common consumer concerns, the future of senior housing is more likely to trend toward cohousing than toward the high-return “asset class” model. The opportunity is at hand for those with the foresight to seize it.
