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Onelife Senior Living, a family-owned developer and operator of senior housing, has taken over management of Belmare Senior Living, located in Oakdale, California, as of August 1, 2024. This is the 15th property for the growing, Denver-based, Onelife, which merged with Ally Senior Living earlier this year and now more than doubled its properties under management over the past six months.
“Belmare Senior Living will be our fourth senior care community in California,” said Dan Williams, CEO of Onelife Senior Living. “We are invested in expanding our California portfolio, because nearly 13 million residents there are over the age of 50. With such a large senior population, California has a constant and growing need for senior living options, and Onelife has made it a goal to meet that demand.”
Belmare Senior Living is located in the heart of downtown Oakdale, close to Woodward Reservoir Park and just a block away from Oak Valley Hospital, giving residents easy access to local activities, businesses and medical facilities.
Living Options and Care at Belmare
Belmare Senior Living offers assisted living, memory care, respite care and independent living options. Assisted living and memory care residents can choose from 538-square-foot one bedroom apartments or 438-square-foot studios, while independent living residents can opt for 823-square-foot one bedroom or 1,080-square-foot two bedroom apartments. All rooms have paid utilities, cable tv, wireless internet and maintenance services. There are several rooms set aside for respite care residents when needed.
Residents in assisted living will be met with personalized, comprehensive care plans based on their individual needs. Individualized care will include incontinence assistance, medication management, shower assistance and more. Apartments are equipped with kitchenettes, spacious closets and large, wheelchair-accessible bathrooms with ADA walk-in showers and grab bars.
The memory care community offers residents experiencing different forms of dementia the same benefits and level of care, along with daily, stimulating memory care-specific activities and programs. Onelife is specialized in Alzheimer’s and dementia across the company in some of its other locations.
Resident Safety and Staff
Among Belmare Senior Living’s dozen staff members are caregivers available around the clock so residents can enjoy the highest level of independence with a sense of security. Additionally, a licensed nurse oversees the community daily, and residents have wearable and in-room call systems in case of emergencies. Staff facilitate weekly housekeeping and personal laundry services.
Activities and Amenities
Belmare Senior Living provides full-service dining in a social setting, with balanced meals prepared by its on-site chef. Community members can participate in a full calendar of planned events and activities, with an accessible van for excursions, and transportation to and from doctors appointments. Community amenities include a movie theater, game room, gym with group class offerings, full-service salon, library, an arts and crafts room and a pool. Residents are encouraged to take advantage of the spacious walking paths, courtyards and community garden.
To contact Onelife or schedule a tour at Belmare Senior Living, visit www.belmareliving.com.
About ONELIFE
Founded in 2009, Denver-based Onelife Senior Living is a family-owned developer and operator of a growing collection of independent assisted living and memory care communities designed to provide seniors the care, support and encouragement they need to live healthy, happy lives.
Shadow Mountain Memory Care is proud to announce that it has recently earned a deficiency-free survey from the Arizona Department of Human Services (DHS).
During the most recent survey conducted by state regulators, Shadow Mountain exceeded federal and state standards in all areas of care, service, and safety.
A deficiency-free survey indicates that our community has met all of the state’s safety and quality standards. Senior living communities undergo an extensive, unannounced survey conducted on-site by state officials. Inspectors evaluate a community’s performance on safety measures across various categories that encompass quality of care, service, and more.
Memory Care communities are evaluated based on their systems and performance within quality measure categories such as resident satisfaction, safety, quality of care and services, hygiene, food service, and more. Survey results provide consumers with information about the health and safety inspection results of different communities and enable them to track improvements made by specific senior care providers over time.
Shadow Mountain Memory Care provides first-class memory care serving Phoenix, Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. We are a premier residential community dedicated to serving the specialized needs of individuals with Alzheimer's Disease, dementia and other forms of memory loss. Conveniently located in North Phoenix, Shadow Mountain is centrally located in the Valley with easy access from Highway 51. As the memory care experts in Phoenix, we offer exceptional, compassionate care tailored to each resident. Discover why we are Phoenix’s trusted resource for memory care and experience the best in supportive and specialized care for your loved one.
Shadow Mountain is committed to providing exceptional care, service, and safety for its residents, and this deficiency-free survey is a testament to that commitment. Join us at Shadow Mountain, where excellence is our standard. If you are interested in learning more about Shadow Mountain, visit our website and contact us today to schedule a tour.
The Esther at Riverbend Assisted Living is proud to announce that it has recently earned a deficiency-free survey from the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS).
During the most recent survey conducted by state regulators, The Esther at Riverbend exceeded federal and state standards in all areas of care, service, and safety.
A deficiency-free survey indicates that our community has met all of the state’s safety and quality standards. Senior living communities undergo an extensive, unannounced survey conducted on-site by state officials. Inspectors evaluate a community’s performance on safety measures across various categories that encompass quality of care, service, and more.
Assisted living communities are evaluated based on their systems and performance within quality measure categories such as resident satisfaction, safety, quality of care and services, hygiene, food service, and more. Survey results provide consumers with information about the health and safety inspection results of different communities and enable them to track improvements made by specific senior care providers over time.
Conveniently located just a short distance from I-5 and PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Hospital, The Esther at Riverbend offers easy access to residents, families, and visitors alike. Residents enjoy proximity to the University of Oregon, known for its vibrant community and amenities.
The Esther at Riverbend is committed to providing exceptional care, service, and safety for its residents, and this deficiency-free survey is a testament to that commitment. Join us at The Esther at Riverbend, where excellence is our standard. If you are interested in learning more about The Esther, contact us today to schedule a tour.
In 2024, senior living developers, investors and operators are upgrading and repurposing their communities.
For example, about a quarter of IntegraCare’s portfolio has recently undergone “a major makeover or a memory-care conversion,” CEO Larry Rouvelas told Senior Housing News.
And IntegraCare is hardly alone in going big on renovation and repositioning projects, as capital market conditions and other headwinds have made it difficult to pursue ground-up development.
This year, Senior Housing News is showcasing how developers, investors and operators are renovating, repositioning and reimagining senior living for a rapidly approaching generation of older adults. Our annual BUILD conference is returning on November 20 and 21 with a new name, (Re)BUILD, to reflect the current times. The event will bring together operators, developers, capital providers, architects, interior designers and many other professionals for two full days of networking opportunities and insights on the future.
Sessions already planned include fireside chats with Charter Senior Living CEO Keven Bennema and Retirement Unlimited President Doris-Ellie Sullivan, a primer on how to prevent senior living communities from becoming obsolete, mastering the art of the community turnaround, and best practices for CapEx calculations. Buzz is building as we continue to add great new speakers to the agenda. Click here for more details and to purchase tickets.
Senior Housing News reached out to this year’s upcoming panelists to talk about what they see ahead in senior living construction and development. What follows are their answers to questions on top development trends, growth strategies and conditions in the coming year, 2025. Their answers reveal that even though conditions are challenging for new construction, forward-thinking providers are hard at work both upgrading communities and creating new, re-envisioned products for the next generation.
Development Trends:
In our latest design, we went with more common space. Adaptable multi-purpose common areas where they can be used for various activities. Example: Large common area with pizza oven and demonstration kitchen, but also has the space to use as an activity room. Integrating more smart home features. Alexa, lights, thermostats. We are adding yoga studios. We still have gyms, but want to have an area for yoga and similar activities. [We have] a variety of dining spaces versus just one large dining room such as bistro’s, rooftop martini bars and a breakfast cafe.
Strategies for Growth:
We are growing through acquisition right now.
We are purchasing distressed assets and taking on some third party management contracts. We have one building under contract to close Nov. 1 and one third party contract in California starting on Aug. 1.
Our strategies on buying distressed assets involve quite a bit of networking. We stay in close contact with brokers, lenders and capital sources. We look for off market deals as well as listings. Recently, several properties that we made offers on have been listed, but we ended up not getting them. We still follow these buildings because they often go off the market. Maybe the owner was asking too much or they fell out of contract with another buyer. They may come back around once the owner realizes he is not going to get what he wants or someone in contract ends up not executing. The building we have under contract now is an example of one we lost but fell out of contract and we stepped in.
Construction and Development in 2025:
I am anticipating interest rates to come down helping get some capital off the sidelines for new construction. Construction costs are now stabilizing now, and I believe that will continue.
If inflation stabilizes and we do not go into a recession, we could see a boom in development. However a big factor in this happening will depend on the upcoming elections. We are currently working on building design and evaluating markets for new development growth. We do not have any land tied up as yet but hope to do that in 2025 and start a pipeline of new development.
Onelife Senior Living, a family-owned developer and operator of senior housing headquartered in Denver, has taken over management of the former Pacifica Senior Living Oxnard in Oxnard, California as of May 1, 2024. As part of the transition, the assisted living and memory care community has been renamed The Vistas at Oxnard and has been rebranded with a new logo and marquee. The Oxnard community will be invited to a grand opening and open house, tentatively planned for late summer.
“We’re excited to expand our footprint to a fifth California community, and to bring our operations expertise to the area as we manage this reputable senior living community. This community is unique because it has several care options, including specialized memory care, assisted living and respite care,” said Dan Williams, CEO of Onelife Senior Living.
Staff & Resident Support at Oxnard
Onelife will retain all staff members, and additional Onelife staff will be hired as needed. 24-hour onsite staff provide assisted living support like escorting to meals and activities, laundry, bathing, dressing, bathroom assistance and more. Staff can also arrange transportation for medical appointments, scheduling of appointments and medication management.
Location, Living & Amenities
Located in a quiet neighborhood in Oxnard, the assisted living and memory care community is central to a plethora of local attractions, including the Channel Islands Maritime Museum, Seabee Historical Center, Channel Islands National Park, Heritage Square and Oxnard State Beach. The community is also close to local hospitals, medical offices, restaurants, banks and other useful businesses.
From a restaurant-style dining area and community theater to a fitness center, The Vistas at Oxnard features several upscale amenities for residents to benefit from. Residents are encouraged to take part in daily social programming like games targeted towards improving cognitive function, movie nights, group exercise classes, art projects and more.
The community is equipped with eight different floor plans to choose from to accommodate each resident’s personal preference and budget. All apartment units have a private bathroom.
To contact Onelife or schedule a tour at The Vistas at Oxnard, visit www.thevistasoxnard.com.
About ONELIFE
Founded in 2009, Denver-based Onelife Senior Living is a family-owned developer and operator of a growing collection of independent assisted living and memory care communities designed to provide seniors the care, support and encouragement they need to live healthy, happy lives.
Steady recovery amid ever-changing challenges, new operating models to spur innovation, consolidation and partnerships— these are some of the traits of senior living organizations standing out in 2024.
Companies are pushing through headwinds and their work is worth tracking. What follows is a list of senior living operators worth keeping an eye on in 2024:
Onelife Senior Living recently merged with Ally Senior Living and created a 19-community senior housing operator and management company in February, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado.
The combined company was born out of Onelife Founder Zack Falk and former Ally CEO Dan Williams’ shared vision for what the future of the senior living industry looks like. Both found vision and mission alignment and both shared the challenges of running a small to midsize operator during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“You need some scale in order to get the resources to make the building successful and I think both Zack and I realized that and I think the other, smaller companies may be in the same position.”
Now with approximately 1,500 employees and will focus on value-add acquisitions from distressed properties, Onelife will focus 2024 on integration of systems and teams of the newly-merged companies with the goal of three acquisitions by the year’s end. The company recently completed an acquisition of a community in Henderson, Nevada in the Las Vegas metro area.
“The main goal is to get all that sorted out going into next year we’re really well-aligned with all of our systems and how we operate so that we can be a best-in-class operator. We’re not going to let the integration process stop us from growth,” Williams said during a recent SHN Transform podcast interview.
Onelife and Ally’s merger could be how smaller senior living operators might fuel growth by joining force, and for that reason, makes Onelife a provider to watch this year.
St. Louis-based Lutheran Senior Services (LSS) has been on the move this year, most recently by announcing its intent to affiliate with Diakon, a Lutheran-aligned senior living operator based in Pennsylvania.
The deal is slated to create a new senior housing and care organization with a footprint of one dozen life plan communities, one assisted living community and nine affordable senior housing communities. Going by the most recent LeadingAge Ziegler 200 report, that would make LSS the 12th-largest nonprofit senior housing operator in the country.
“[The deal] will make sure that we are better able to compete for talent; make sure that we can continue to add and to grow specialty positions within the organization; create career-ladder opportunities for our team; and then obviously, increase purchasing power, negotiating power, spread overhead, improve access to capital,” LSS CEO Adam Marles told Senior Housing News in March.
Marles and the organization are not done growing and evolving this year, either. He previously told SHN that the organization has a new strategic framework and is engaged in a “pivot year” in 2024. That pivot includes moving away from skilled nursing and deeper into core private-pay senior living services such as independent living, assisted living and memory care.
“For us a laser focus right now is making sure that we have sustainable communities for the long-term, recognizing that boomers’ demands are going to be so much different than our current consumer,” Marles told Senior Housing News.
The organization’s focus on evolving for a new demographic of older adults, plus its fast and continued growth in 2024, make LSS one worth keeping an eye on this year.
Retirement Unlimited, Inc. (RUI) is a company that’s likely already on the radar for some senior living industry watchers. But the operator has become an even more important one to keep an eye on in the last 12 months.
In late December, RUI announced the acquisition of Brandywine Living, a deal that increased the company’s portfolio to 59 communities across the country. With the acquisition of Brandywine, RUI picked up new scale in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania.
The Roanoke, Virginia-based senior living operator has been on a fast growth trajectory since 2021, when it had just 12 communities in its portfolio. And in 2024, the company has gone on a hiring spree by adding regional-level leaders across the country.
The company has grown in recent years with the help of real estate investment trust Welltower (NYSE: WELL), and in 2023, that relationship helped fuel the launch of a new luxury brand for RUI. Welltower CEO Shankh Mitra has also identified RUI as a top operating partner for the REIT.
Helping to lead RUI is President Doris-Ellie Sullivan, a seasoned senior housing industry leader with a clear vision for the company’s future in a fast-changing industry.
Sullivan represents the next generation of industry leadership, and in 2023, she earned a spot as a Senior Housing News Changemaker. At the time, she spoke about the need for operators to evolve for the incoming baby boomer generation.
“Our customer coming through the doors is completely different,” Sullivan told SHN in 2023 as part of that interview. “Going through customer-journey mapping, looking at other industries – I think senior living needs to focus on that.”
In 2024, REITs and other deep-pocketed companies are in the driver’s seat with regard to new growth, and RUI’s Welltower backing will likely keep its lane for future expansion wide open. That reason, coupled with the company’s leadership, makes RUI a senior living operator to watch this year.
Affinity Living Communities gained new prominence earlier this year when it was labeled as one of the “major players” in the space by Welltower CEO Shankh Mitra, after the REIT acquired a 25-property portfolio managed by the company for nearly $1 billion in February.
President Darin Davidson has noted that Welltower is “a partner with shared values and forward thinking.”
“The Welltower partnership will enable us to enhance and extend our ability to execute our mission of creating thriving communities in which our engaged residents live full and happy lives,” he said in a press release at the time.
The 3,900-unit portfolio is mostly concentrated in the Pacific Northwest and expands Welltower’s “wellness housing portfolio.” The communities are purpose-built with an average age of eight years, with resident rates of about $2,100. They typically span 30,000 square feet of amenity space.
According to the REIT, the Affinity portfolio carries margins close to 60%, and there are opportunities to further expand it by three or four new properties a year.
Looking ahead, wellness-focused properties for low-acuity residents will represent a bigger part of the REIT’s strategy, with companies like Affinity Living Group potentially at the forefront of that strategy. That, along with the active adult sector’s still-popular status among investors and owners, makes the company worth paying attention to this year.
The senior living industry is at the cross-current of two major trends: The need to offer middle-market rates for residents, and the need to educate prospects about what senior living is in light of new scrutiny on the industry.
Bourbonnais, Illinois,-based Gardant Management Solutions sits at the nexus of both trends.
Thanks to the addition of about two-dozen former Pathway to Living communities to its portfolio in 2023, Gardant is now one of the largest assisted living providers in the country with 80 communities. The company’s middle-market model utilizes a combination of private pay rates and Medicaid waivers to keep costs lower for residents.
Gardant currently serves about 6,000 older adults through the Medicaid waiver program, an effort that has required “an entirely different business model altogether,” Simpkins said.
The operator’s model was on full display earlier this year during a Senate hearing prompted by recent Washington Post articles on resident elopement, when Gardant Management Co-President and COO Julie Simpkins spoke about the need to offer middle-market options for residents.
“With a rapidly growing elderly population, we need a public and private partnership to incentivize more providers to develop these models,” Simpkins said at the Senate hearing. “From expanding more affordable long-term care options to workforce programs addressing the growing caregiver shortages, these efforts could make a real difference.”
Simpkins is not shy about the fact that she sees a greater role for federal and state governments in helping subsidize the cost of senior living – and she is not the only one in the industry who feels that way, either.
Given the company’s fast growth and innovation at the forefront of the public payment trend in senior living, Gardant Management is a senior living operator to watch in 2024.
To determine the future of the senior living industry, one need not look further than the recent merger between Ally Senior Living and Onelife Senior Living.
That is the opinion of Dan Williams, former CEO of Ally Senior Living. Ally merged with Onelife in late February that brought together two small, but growing, senior living operators. The merger was the result of years of communication with Onelife Senior Living Founder Zack Falk in sharing their respective experiences as a start-up senior living operator amidst the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now the CEO of Onelife in tandem with Falk, Williams foresees more opportunities for small to midsize senior living operators to join forces in the coming years.
“I think that a lot of smaller companies can look to a [merger] because you can leverage and get better pricing through GPOs and you can get lower food costs and you can get all those different things to support,” Williams said during the most recent episode of the SHN Transform podcast. “You need some scale in order to get the resources to make the building successful and I think both Zack and I realized that and I think the other, smaller companies may be in the same position.”
The Denver, Colorado-based senior living operator’s portfolio consists of 19 communities, with a roughly 50/50 split between owned and managed communities.
Looking ahead, Williams said Onelife will consider future value-add opportunities, with the potential to add three acquisitions this year. With one completed in the Las Vegas, Nevada metro area, that strategy is already bearing fruit.
‘We still want to talk to new capital partners, clients who have third party opportunities to find a good operator,” Williams said during the podcast. “In order to handle that, we need to have our house in order.”
As the dust settles from the merger, Williams said the executive teams from both Ally and Onelife have worked this year to integrate all systems, finding efficiencies by mixing and matching best practices from both organizations. Both Williams and Falk are committed to internal leadership development while also recruiting new talent as turnover demands it as the merger resulted in 1,500 employees coming together.
“The main goal is to get all that sorted out going into next year we’re really well-aligned with all of our systems and how we operate so that we can be a best-in-class operator. We’re not going to let the integration process stop us from growth,” Williams said.
Highlights from Williams’ podcast appearance are included below, edited for length and clarity. Subscribe to the Transform podcast via Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud or Google Play.
It was a big journey, a big decision. I had Ally Senior LIving and it started a couple years ago and we were growing 10 communities that we were operating in. A friend of mine, Zack Falk, who had a company called Onelife Senior Living — we were close to the same size and we would have conversations and there was an echo going on because we were saying the same things. We started talking about what it would look like if we both merged, and how that company would look.
Through those conversations, we found out that we are aligned and our vision much aligned in our mission in the way that we approach the business and there are a lot of synergies there. So we, in the end, wanted to scale and take advantage of the headwinds coming up in our industry over the next 10 to 15 years.
So scaling up, merging, was a good thing for us and it gives us a lot of benefits. We can have those specialists, and we can have programming people and we can have an asset manager. When you’re smaller, you don’t have the money to do those things. It’s been great and that’s how we got to that decision.
We’re at 19 buildings and we will be at 20 buildings as of April 1.
We call it Onelife 2.0 because we stuck with the Onelife name and Onelife brand going forward. But prior to that we had owned and operated their communities [as Ally]. Onelife built it at the time of the merger of eight communities and we’ve added one since. Ally had 10 buildings under management contracts and we were going towards purchasing another building.
It was a difficult time to start an operator and get acquisitions going so we never got one under the belt during the first two years, but we were headed that way. So that’s the portfolio as it is now and we’re about half management contracts and half of what we own and operate ourselves.
I think that 50-50 is a good mix and it’s going to fluctuate over the years. We have an organization now with over 100-plus years of experience just in the top few positions, so there’s a lot of industry knowledge and we want to be able to utilize that and we want to help out other owners of properties who need services. We’re going to be selective in that we need to have fully-aligned in how we look at senior living with those clients.
It also includes acquisitions and we’re actively looking for value-add acquisitions, distressed communities, that we can take on leverage our operational expertise and turning those around and creating value, creating a good environment for the employees to work in. We’re looking at opportunities to grow and we want to create opportunities for those employees that are in-house. We want those opportunities to be there and it’s part of the mission as a company.
It is by-opportunity, but we’re the strongest in the west coast in California, Oregon—so the Northwest and the West. We have a building in the Phoenix, Arizona area, Utah, Nevada and then we have Texas where we have a couple of communities and then one in Florida where we’re probably going to transition out of it’s just a third-party contract. Great owners, but it’s just a little too far from where we are.
The goal was you want to try to cluster. We want to try to cluster build. We’re in Dallas, we have two buildings there, and we’re looking for two or three more because you can share resources, it’s easier for your corporate office to travel and there’s a lot of benefits to having buildings that are close to each other. That’s kind of what we’re looking for when we enter a market.
A lot of markets like Las Vegas, we have one building, we’re looking for more. We’ve got a letter of intent out on trying to purchase another memory care building in that area and so we want to build that up and stay, I am going to say west of the Mississippi, but we’ve got one in Illinois and it’s hard to say so we’re going to the opportunity. If you look at the top 30 metros in the country, we want to stay in those maybe—top 25— so [that] versus more rural assets.
We knew years ago that we were aligned on how we thought of things. We’re both very purpose-driven people. We look at this industry and what we do and the product that we provide to the consumer and the workplace. We provide employees with a mission and we have a purpose in life and that’s to take care of seniors at the end of the day. That’s what we do and we care for seniors.
At the end of the day, we’re caregivers in a way and that’s how we look at it. We both want to create an organization that is a mission-driven place. We employ 1,500 employees and we want all of those individuals to find their purpose and their meaning in life and we want to help them do it. We found ours and a lot of people haven’t found theirs.
We want to create an organization and that’s what we developed our mission statement around. That’s what we developed our vision around being a purpose-driven company.
We knew going in you have two average-sized companies and each company has their own systems that they use. Accounting, sales and marketing, CRM, EHR for resident care delivery; EMR’s. It’s integrating those two systems that go best of what works best for each company and that’s been great. We’ve been going from the best of each system. We’ve gone: ‘Onelife does this much better than Ally did it, so let’s use that’ and on the flip-side, well Ally, they do really well here.
That’s been a great benefit that I underestimated going in. Creating that infrastructure and integrating those systems, it’s not an easy thing and it’s a task and that’s what pulls my hair out and thinking about it. However, the longer you go, the better it’s getting and so we’re seeing a lot of gains there.
We want to look at acquisitions and we’ve got some letters of intent out right now. So we’re looking for buildings that are distressed, that opened during the pandemic and never really took off. Maybe it was special circumstances…maybe it was a developer who didn’t realize how operational-centric this business is and this community didn’t succeed. We’d like to go in there and find those kinds of opportunities.
We plan to do about three or four of those this year and we’ve already done one in Henderson, Nevada. So we’ve got one on the board now and that’s in our owned and operated SHOP. We still want to talk to new capital partners, clients who have third party opportunities to find a good operator.
In order to handle that, we need to have our house in order. I call the merger controlled chaos and you’re integrating two brands, two teams, two systems. So the main goal is to get all that sorted out going into next year we’re really well-aligned with all of our systems and how we operate so that we can be a best-in-class operator. We’re not going to let the integration process stop us from growth.
The tough part is you’re bringing together two very talented, industry-veteran, tight teams. You’re putting those people together and playing nice in the sandbox. It’s easier said than done sometimes so what we did is really emphasize culture and where we’re going on our mission as a company and our vision.
I think having that foundation to lean upon for both sets of teams as they came together really helped and it’s not been as much of a challenge as I thought it would be bringing two teams together because there were definitely synergies. There were some things that Ally didn’t have and vice versa for Onelife.
For instance, HR, Onelife had an internal HR department, we didn’t at Ally and we had it out-sourced. So now we’re bringing it in-house so we’re kind of a hybrid but we’ll probably end up building out that accounting department as internal and not out-sourced. So meshing all those together has been the toughest part. It’s a lot of evaluating the current talent we have and making sure we get the right people in the right spot on the right seat of the bus.
There’s a lot of back-and-forth as far as the legality of bringing two companies together so that’s been a challenge working with insurance companies, working with attorneys with those contracts for the systems that you’re working with, and you’re working with a lot of people that in your day-to-day as an operator with 20-30 communities not merged, you don’t have those distractions. Right now it’s all getting sorted out but it’s time consuming to make sure everything is in-line. It’s more of a distraction, but it’s necessary going forward for our infrastructure to go through that.
I certainly do because it’s not easy, speaking from experience to open an operator during this time in our industry. We’re coming out of the pandemic and we’ve kind of got a hangover from the pandemic and how we operate in our margins, how we’re looking at staffing just a lot of different things coming out of the pandemic.
The industry suffered really hard with occupancy. It was just a very tough time for me to start an operator. I think that a lot of smaller companies can look to a [merger] because you can leverage and get better pricing through GPOs and you can get lower food costs and you can get all those different things to support whether it’s a third-party owner or yourself if you own the building.
You get talent acquisition and you can merge the talent. When you’re small, you can’t afford too much talent and so you get that in today’s operations and what we’re seeing it’s a lot different than 10 years ago when we were operating communities. It’s more complex, there’s a lot more nuances and how you’re gonna run your assisted living and there’s a lot of extra regulation that came out of Covid.
You need some scale in order to get the resources to make the building successful and I think both Zack and I realized that and I think the other, smaller companies may be in the same position that we were in, so I think it makes sense to merge. I would highly advise the owners of those companies to certainly make sure they’re merging with somebody that they know and trust and have the same vision going forward.
Zack and I, we both have the same 10 to 15 year goals and we both know the headwinds of this, the demographics of this industry, we have been through the cycles. We’ve seen the industry go down and we’ve seen it go back up and we know it’s going back up now. It’s just waiting it out and getting what you can in order to take that on during the good years so other companies could look at combining, scale up and get in a good position to really grow, if that’s your goal, to a larger scale in the next 10 to 15 years.
Staffing is the key and 60 to 70% of operating costs is labor and it’s critical to the success of a community. Our caregivers and care partners are so valuable, so important to us and can make or break a building so you have to put staffing retention and staffing recruitment as a main priority.
We’ve seen a lot of positive things when it comes to staffing. Over the last few years, wages have gone up. The people that deliver the care are the hardest working people out there and they deserve everything, and the wage increases.
But it has a ripple effect on the prices we have to charge and we’re treating staffing today as a priority. We treat every applicant that applies as a caregiver just like it would a consumer inquiring to tour to move into a community. It’s an aggressive follow-up, convincing these prospective employees that we’re part of a great mission-driven culture and we [would] like them to be part of it.
We want to create an organization that people want to be in and we want to create hope, growth and opportunity for them and we do that by growing and having them as a part of us. We’re going to try and develop everybody here in-house with a lot of training, micro-learning videos, all kinds of different things that we have planned for that…We’re not utilizing agency in our buildings and we’re seeing wages stabilize and we’re seeing the applicant pool of potential employees increase, just a lot of positives there. So I remain optimistic on staffing in our industry.
One of our biggest challenges over the next 10 to 15 years is going to be staffing and it’s going to be at the care delivery level in each building and that has to be good in your building to succeed. As an organization, we have to focus hard on that aspect of it.
Now that the ONELIFE Senior Living - Ally Senior Living merger is finalized, our team has hit the ground running, eager for the opportunities that lie ahead as we drive innovation and growth within our communities. Our collective efforts have already ignited a surge of activity as we dive headfirst into projects aimed at driving ONELIFE communities toward greater success. From improving current communities to devising innovative initiatives, our team is dedicated to reshaping the senior care sector with forward-looking solutions.
The strategic consolidation of our companies has established ONELIFE as a dominant force in the market, equipped with a wide range of capabilities spanning development, construction, and operations. This strategic advantage will not only accelerate our growth trajectory but also enable us to deliver unparalleled value to our residents, team members, and stakeholders. Partnering with the best in the industry, we eagerly anticipate laying the foundation for our success over the next three decades. With immense potential for growth and development, ONELIFE is dedicated to maximizing every opportunity.
Join us as we embark on this exhilarating journey, moving forward with unwavering confidence and determination. We invite you to connect with us and follow along as we unveil many exciting projects and initiatives in the months and years ahead.
Together, let's construct a future where every senior can thrive and prosper in communities that prioritize their happiness, health, and overall well-being.
We would also like to thank McKnight's Senior Living for recognizing our merger and helping us increase our impact in the senior living industry, we truly value your partnership.
Founded in 2009, Denver-based Onelife Senior Living is a family-owned developer and operator of a growing collection of independent assisted living and memory care communities designed to provide seniors the care, support and encouragement they need to live healthy, happy lives.
For more information visit ONELIFE online at www.onelifeseniorliving.com.
Family-owned Onelife Senior Living, based in Colorado, and Ally Senior Living, a Texas-based operator, have completed a deal that establishes a brand-new company with 19 communities across eight states.
Nine of the properties come from the previously existing OneLife portfolio; the rest, from Ally-operated properties. The company has plans to acquire five or so communities in the next 12 to 18 months.
The company is retaining the Onelife Senior Living name and branding. Dan Williams, previously CEO of Ally Senior Living, and Zack Falk, previously CEO of Onelife, are partners in the new company. Elliott Westerman, the former chief financial officer at Ally, now has that role at OneLife. Other executives from both companies will fill roles in the newly merged firm.
“This takes us from two successful, but smaller, companies to a large actor in the industry with significant capital-backing,” Onelife Senior Living partner Dan Williams stated Tuesday in a press release.
“We now have much broader capabilities and will focus on being a top-class operator while growing our portfolio selectively and astutely,” he said. “As a company, we want to grow steadily over time rather than all at once, because quality care remains our top priority.”
The two companies began discussing a possible merger last year, and the deal was finalized this month.
“The merger is designed to accelerate growth while maximizing the strategic advantage of each company. Onelife is now uniquely placed in the market with development, construction and operational capabilities,” the press release said.
The freshly launched Onelife Senior Living employs 1,400 across the 19-property portfolio. The headquarters will remain in Denver, with management and support teams in Arizona, Oregon and Texas.
“Onelife’s roots go back 60 years to a six-story senior living community in Canyonville, OR, founded by my father,” said Greg Falk, co-founder and principal investor of Onelife Senior Living. “Partnering with Dan and his Ally team gives us an important opportunity to expand our footprint, enhance our operating platform and come together on new ideas in a market with huge demand projected for the next 30 years.”
Ally Senior Living has merged with Onelife Senior Living, creating a company with a portfolio of 19 communities in eight states.
The combined company, which is keeping the Onelife Senior Living name and branding, is ready to grow via ownership acquisition and third-party management contracts.
Former Ally Senior Living CEO Dan Williams and Onelife Senior Living CEO Zack Falk are co-leading the new company. WIth the merger now complete, a total of 1,400 employees now work under the Onelife banner.
Discussions around a possible merger started in earnest last year. Both companies shared similar business philosophies on resident care, employee engagement and workplace culture, according to Williams.
“Our goals at Ally and with Onelife were pretty consistent,” Williams told SHN. “We didn’t have the expertise that they had on the development, financing and capital side of things while they didn’t have the operational expertise like we did, so we know it’s a good fit.”
In 2022, Williams founded Ally with the help of a $100 million fund to buy distressed assets with a focus on memory care communities.
As it stands, the combined company’s portfolio is near a 50-50 mix of owned communities and third-party management contracts with various ownership groups.
“We’re focusing a lot of our energy right now on recruiting and retention while creating a positive work culture and that will lead to providing the best resident care,” Williams said.
Going forward, Onelife will focus on value-add acquisition of senior living communities, specifically in the memory care and higher acuity care types, including assisted living. Multiple Ally executives are transitioning into new roles with Onelife, and the incoming team brings operations experience that will pair well with Onelife’s development expertise and ownership structure, Williams said.
This year, Onelife is looking to integrate systems between the two newly merged companies. The company also is seeking to add new communities, with multiple pending offers out for potential acquisition and management contracts.
“Our goal is to have three-to-four value-add acquisitions in 2024 and maybe a select few third-party management agreements,” Williams said. “We don’t want to over-extend our skis.”
That mindset of methodical growth could be a guiding principle for Onelife going forward, with no set number of communities to reach with an emphasis on creating regional density in markets with existing Onelife communities, Williams added.
On future transactions, Williams said Onelife was “well-capitalized” and prepared to be “active and execute” when the right opportunity surfaces. While development remains tough, Williams said short-term growth would most likely include acquisition or third-party management.
For future development opportunities, WIlliams added that could come in major midwestern metropolitan markets. Onelife recently opened a 103-unit assisted living community in Springfield, Oregon as the ink dried from the recent merger. Last November, Onelife recently expanded to the Chicago area with the acquisition of a community in suburban Vernon Hills.
“We want to stay in the needs-based care type side of things,” Williams said. “We like AL and memory care and we’re still bullish on that as a future product.”
In September of last year, Denver-based Onelife reported that its portfolio was 90% occupied with focusing on stabilization and recovery.
ONELIFE Senior Living is proud to announce that Battle Creek Memory Care have received the 2024 Pinnacle Customer Service award! This is an honor to receive this award as we were scored in the top 15% of senior care in the nation.
Congratulations to all of our staff at Battle Creek for your outstanding work! This highlights the level of service we provide to residents in Salem, Oregon.
Battle Creek was recognized Best in Class in the following categories:
About Pinnacle Quality Insight:
Throughout 2023, Battle Creek Memory Care residents and their families participated in monthly telephone interviews where they answered open-ended questions and rated Cornerstone Assisted Living and Memory Care in multiple categories.
About ONELIFE Senior Living
Founded in 2009, Denver-based ONELIFE Senior Living is a family-owned developer and operator of a growing collection of independent living, assisted living and memory care communities designed to wholeheartedly support, empower, and enhance the lives of each resident, colleague, and family we serve.
The former Springs of Vernon Hills Alzheimer’s Special Care Center has become The Laurel at Vernon Hills after being acquired by Onelife Senior Living, a family-owned developer and operator of senior housing, on July 1, 2023. During the 100-day transition, ending in October, Onelife retained all 59 staff members, and reviewed and updated benefits, wages and best practices for staffing. Onelife reduced temporary agency staff, which became prevalent in senior living during the pandemic, and increased permanent team members. Julie Stoneburner, MA, RN, CHPN is the executive director of the community.
“Bringing The Laurel into our family is a big step for Onelife. Chicago has been on our radar because the need for senior care specialized in Alzheimer’s and dementia in the region is significant now, but is expected to increase 13 percent by 2025,” said Zack Falk, founder and CEO of Onelife Senior Living. “It’s a great opportunity to duplicate the success we have had in other cities.”
The Laurel at Vernon Hills Memory Care provides compassionate, connected memory care to serve people with Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia. It’s unique in its singular focus on memory care.
Located near Chicago in Lake County in Northeast Illinois, The Laurel at Vernon Hills Memory Care is surrounded by picturesque parks, lakes and historic sites like the Cuneo Museums and Gardens, the Raupp Historical Museum and the Vernon Hills Athletic Complex.
“The Laurel is a special place because of the quality of our team, and the fact that we are connected with the best healthcare providers and industry leaders in Lake County,” said Stoneburner, who has been executive director of the community since 2019. “We had the resources to provide an outstanding level of care for our residents, and Onelife gives us the opportunity to build upon that even further.”
Onelife creates community living for seniors where they can connect with family, staff and other residents in a secure and comfortable environment. The team aims to cultivate physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being through diet, activity, understanding and support.
“About 230,000 of the 5.8 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s Disease are in Illinois, so we knew there was a need for specialized memory care in the region. My family has been working in the senior care space for more than 60 years, and my goal is to advance the continuum of care in the U.S. through better assisted living and memory care where there is a need,” said Greg Falk, co-founder and principal investor, Onelife Senior Living.
Onelife is constantly developing and programming activities that are meaningful to each resident. Their goal is to cultivate purpose with residents and stimulate cognitive functions. Activities include exercise and brain games, outings, movie showings, happy hour socials, cooking classes and so much more. Family and friends of residents are always encouraged to join activities during visits. Private spaces are available for residents and their visitors to host special events such as birthday parties and anniversary celebrations.
There are several design elements that make The Laurel specifically tailored to memory care and the overall wellbeing of residents, including the large hallways and circular design that allows for independence. Combined with fully enclosed courtyards and enhanced security, The Laurel strives to give residents the freedom of going wherever they want and doing what interests them while still being safe. Because not all residents have the same capabilities, the community has several common areas that lead to dual programming for activities.For example, one family room may be utilized for residents who display higher functioning, while the other might be used for those who need a bit more assistance.
Staff members at The Laurel have more training in the management of various types of dementia, and in how to address challenging behaviors related to these conditions. They adapt to residents’ changing needs and encourage them with activities of daily living, including bathing assistance, meal and activity reminders and routine housekeeping.
To contact Onelife or schedule a tour at The Laurel, visit www.laurelvernonhills.com. There are also full- and part-time positions available among staff. For more information on career opportunities at The Laurel, go to www.onelifeseniorliving.com.
Founded in 2009, Oregon-based Onelife Senior Living is a family-owned developer and operator of a growing collection of assisted living and memory care communities designed to provide seniors the care, support and encouragement they need to live healthy, happy lives. Onelife combines advancements in healthcare with innovations in residential hospitality to keep seniors engaged, families connected and communities whole.
Onelife Senior Living (Onelife), a family-owned developer and operator of assisted living and memory care communities, announced that The Esther at Riverbend will open this fall, prior to the holiday season. The highly-anticipated 103-room assisted living community, which is located on Game Farm Road in Springfield, next to its existing memory care community, will offer daily activities, ample gathering spaces, and more than 16 types of private suites with a variety of floor plans and features. Todd Whitehead, a three-year veteran of Onelife, has been named Senior Executive Director of the new community.
The Esther’s detailed, modern farmhouse design is expressed most fully in common dining, meeting, gathering, and quiet areas. The community’s common areas are spread among every floor, anchored by The 1923 Bistro with a large pergola right outside, The Drake Club Room, Timber View Library, Wild Rose Tea Room, and The Gregory, the all-community dining room.
“It is clear to us that assisted living is in need of, not just more options, but environments that are inspiring places where residents, caregivers, and service providers feel they are at home,” said Zack Falk, founder and CEO of Onelife. “With the opening of The Esther, we are striving to fill the growing need for assisted living in the Eugene-Springfield area while creating a place where families can visit and connect with parents and grandparents on-site, and where those residents can build community in a safe space.”
The Esther is especially designed to accommodate seniors of all ages who require varying types of assistance in their daily lives. Younger residents may move to assisted living for the community setting, reduced isolation, balanced meals, exercise classes, and planned group activities. Meanwhile, specialized care is available for residents who need a higher level of physical aid or medical attention while living at The Esther. Next to The Esther is another Onelife community, The Rawlin at Riverbend, which specializes in memory care and, adjacent to The Esther, creates a campus-style configuration available to residents who develop Alzheimer’s or other dementia that would be better treated in a specialized environment offered there. The proximity between The Esther and The Rawlin expands community-building opportunities for residents and increases the availability of care.
The Esther mimics the small-town feel of Springfield, drawing upon its characteristically warm, welcoming reputation. Located in the Riverbend area, it is close to I-5 and the sprawling University of Oregon campus, and less than one mile from PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at Riverbend.
“When we were conceptualizing The Esther, it was really important for us to bring the outside in through design approaches and details that are grounding and purposeful while ensuring that they are safe. The Esther is unique in that surrounding the entire building is an undulating walking path anchored by a bountiful landscape offering seasonal colors and graceful changes in scale to be enjoyed by residents during their outdoor walks. We also added planters for gardening and a backyard fire pit for residents to enjoy outdoor social events with friends and family,” said Patrick Bickler, the Salem-based architect ofThe Esther. “Springfield is such a beautiful area, so we took advantage of that by adding several outdoor porches and vast windows that face the stunning Coburg Hills.”
Todd Whitehead has been named executive director of The Esther. Mr. Whitehead joined Onelife in 2020, and will move from the company’s Salem community, Battle Creek Memory Care, where he was the executive director for the 72-room community focused on residents with dementia. Prior to his work with Onelife, Mr. Whitehead spent time working at Brookdale and Sinceri. He will provide additional support for The Rawlin by overseeing the campus alongside its Executive Director.
With seven out of ten people requiring assisted living care in their lifetime, about two percent of Americans currently live in assisted living communities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2040, the U.S. senior population is projected to nearly double, necessitating almost one million more assisted living beds that exist today.
The 16 different floor plans span studios, one bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments as large as 1,010 square feet. No matter the floor plan, all rooms have luxurious amenities like large, light-filled windows with Pacific Northwest views, abundant storage, and stainless steel appliances including refrigerators and microwaves.
Residents will be offered an array of indoor and outdoor common areas that accommodate entertainment and a sense of community. Purposeful activities that inspire and facilitate education, participation, and fun are both tailored to residents’ personal interests and beneficial to maintaining strong cognitive abilities. Activities include but are not limited to music programs, weekly outings, cooking demonstrations, art classes, brain games, and book clubs.
For resident’s guests, The Esther will provide a complimentary stay at the hospitality suite on the third floor. The principal goal of the hospitality suite is to break down some of the barriers to visiting residents, like needing to find and pay for a hotel stay, or needing to rent a car to travel between the hotel and assisted living community.
With various floor plans to choose from and dozens of specialized care options, pricing honors personal preferences and budget. To contact Onelife or schedule a tour at The Esther, visit estherassistedliving.com.
Founded in 2009, Oregon-based Onelife Senior Living is a family-owned developer and operator of a growing collection of assisted living communities designed to provide seniors the care, support, and encouragement they need to live healthy, happy lives. Onelife combines advancements in healthcare with innovations in residential hospitality to keep seniors engaged, families connected, and communities whole.
Senior living providers are more focused than ever on providing high-quality health care — and finding ways to be compensated for doing so. This is driving investment in clinical capabilities and pushing the industry to a tipping point on value-based care.
These are among my takeaways from the recent American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In the early days of Covid-19, many industry leaders declared that the pandemic had settled the debate about whether senior living is primarily a health care or hospitality offering. Health care was declared the correct answer.
At the time, I wondered whether the pendulum would tilt back toward hospitality, once a deadly virus was no longer circulating so ferociously.
But I left ASHA convinced that a deeper dedication to care is a lasting legacy of the pandemic.
In this week’s exclusive, members-only SHN+ update, I offer further analysis and key takeaways, including:
Senior living margins are being tightly squeezed while resident acuity remains elevated, meaning that providers are focused more than ever on accurately assessing care needs and charging appropriately for services being delivered.
August Health Co-Founder Erez Cohen told me this at ASHA, when I asked him why senior living providers are choosing to invest in August’s electronic health record platform even as they struggle to keep budgets in check.
Providers are being forced to confront the fact that they have been “flying blind,” without data on care-related information such as average acuity across their portfolio and how that has changed over time, Cohen said. Without such data, it is impossible to set appropriate care levels and corresponding charges, and providers cannot sacrifice any revenue in today’s tough operating climate.
At the same time, severe workforce disruption has made it more critical to run operations efficiently, compelling providers to make technology investments and go through the pain of implementation — particularly if they believe the new tech will be easier to use than legacy systems or burdensome paper-based processes, Cohen said.
Furthermore, he said, consumers want greater transparency about what they are paying for and have elevated expectations about nearly every aspect of the senior living experience, from ease of move-in to coordination of care.
These themes — how focusing on care can maximize revenue, enhance staff engagement and efficiency, and drive consumer satisfaction — were repeated again and again in conversations I had during ASHA.
For example, Ally Senior Living Founder and CEO Dan Williams explained why the company recently invested in a hospice business, saing that consumers will appreciate a more “streamlined” care experience. And Staff likewise should experience a more cohesive model of care, he said. He’s envisioning being able to staff the building with an extra CNA on a 24/7 basis through the hospice company when the need arises, to supplement assisted living care.
In our conversations, Williams and Cohen focused their comments mostly on assisted living and memory care, but Trilogy Health Services CEO Leigh Ann Barney emphasized the importance of accurately gauging care levels even for independent living or lower-acuity assisted living residents.
“If we have people that can take care of their own medications, we want to let them have that independence as long as possible,” she said. “Now, it’s helpful to us because we don’t have to staff for it, but it gives them a sense of independence, and then we make sure that they’re getting a break on their pricing for that as well.”
At the same time, echoing Cohen’s point, she emphasized that Trilogy has a system to track acuity over time and charge for escalating services — with pricing to encourage moves to more advanced levels of care at appropriate times.
Trilogy has made a concerted effort to enhance its care offerings across all levels of the continuum, given that the organization offers IL, AL and skilled nursing. In fact, when Barney took the CEO role in 2019, she made this a key goal. Of Trilogy’s clinical capabilities, she said:
“I wanted to elevate it to a higher level, to the point where we thought of our entire continuum of clinical excellence, not just skilled … but we provide clinical excellence in our assisted living, so that people can live in their home longer, and then with the IL product, which is newer in our history.”
Covid-19 temporarily forced Trilogy to pause certain initiatives, but the pandemic has become a “springboard” for the company — and the entire sector — to reach more ambitious care goals, Barney said.
“This is really a springboard for us to say, our industry can do these things, because we had to do these things,” she told me.
For Trilogy, “these things” include adding advanced capabilities such as on-site dialysis and stroke rehabilitation in skilled nursing and more robust wellness offerings in IL and AL. It should be “offensive” to Trilogy for any resident to go to the hospital for anything less than a “dire emergency,” Barney said.
Like Cohen and Williams, she tied this care philosophy to staffing. She highlighted the retention benefits that come from investing in training and education to enable clinicians to deliver more complex care, and the satisfaction they take from being able to practice in more clinically challenging environments.
From a revenue perspective, there is the obvious length-of-stay benefit that comes from promoting wellness and preventing hospitalizations. And these objectives also dovetail with the goals of value-based care, opening up the potential for Trilogy to make a play in Medicare Advantage or other managed care frameworks.
Indeed, Trilogy has an internal value-based care committee that has been studying the options, and Barney anticipates making a decision this year to be in “some type of ISNP.” And she believes the “biggest upside” might come from an IE-SNP to serve the company’s independent and assisted living residents.
I believe other providers, not just Trilogy, will be announcing value-based care plays in the next 12 months.
That’s because just as more providers are focused on maximizing care revenue and making investments into care-related technology and ancillary services, more concrete proof now is being offered about the benefits — including financial upside — that can come from participation in managed care models.
For years, seemingly every industry event has featured some version of the same panel, in which a few evangelists — Juniper Communities CEO Lynne Katzmann foremost among them — have advocated for senior living providers to become involved in value-based care.
But the value-based care panel at ASHA was different. That’s because the group of senior living providers that have engaged in value-based care has grown, the options for participating in value-based models have increased, and pioneers such as Katzmann are now bringing results to the discussion.
Among those results:
There is still some vagueness on some numbers, but after two days of hearing about beleaguered margins, the messages about increased NOI — and length of stay, and customer satisfaction — landed with particular forcefulness.
And while there have always been multiple routes into managed care, speakers at ASHA described an expanded menu of options available to senior living providers, ranging from upside-only arrangements to those involving full upside and downside risk.
It’s obvious that an increasing number of senior living providers are selecting from this menu. Lifespark has 60 senior living campuses poised to join its network, The Perennial Consortium continues to add new members, and Curana is partnered with more than 1,000 senior living and skilled nursing communities.
Still, not everyone in the sector is convinced that the time is right to engage in value-based care.
“There’s a lot of hesitance among providers to really get into this space,” said Christian Living Communities (CLC) CEO Jill Vitale-Aussem. CLC is part of the Perennial Consortium.
The truth of her observation was in evidence, as other speakers at ASHA described value-based care as still being in the early stages, or noted that many of their residents still are not part of Medicare Advantage plans.
But the writing is on the wall. As CPF Living Communities CEO and Chicago Pacific Founders Co-Founder John Rijos pointed out, 50% of 65-year-olds currently are directly enrolling in an MA plan, and this proportion will continue to increase.
Meanwhile, the federal government is expanding and adjusting ACOs and other value-based frameworks to involve more providers, with a goal of having all Medicare enrollees in an accountable care relationship by 2030.
At the same time, MA behemoths such as UnitedHealthcare and Humana continue to pour massive amounts of capital into gaining more control over the whole care continuum, including through blockbuster acquisitions of home health providers.
And as I’ve described above, senior living providers are facing intense margin pressure and permanently elevated labor expenses, a staffing crisis that demands long-term solutions, and rising consumer expectations (and resident acuity) — all issues that are addressed by value-based care involvement.
This is not to say that jumping into value-based care models is easy or that success is guaranteed, but I think that for senior living, the “wait-and-see” period is over. The time has come for providers to stop watching what a few trailblazing organizations are doing, and get in the game.
Margin compression is forcing senior living providers to reconsider some of the most fundamental aspects of the traditional operating model.
This was one takeaway from the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) conference that took place earlier this week in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Covid-related margin pressure has been exacerbated by cost inflation and staffing pressures. After two years of historic rate growth and potentially another on the way, operators are looking for creative ways to cut costs without sacrificing service — and while continuing to meet financial obligations and expectations.
“We’re now having to figure out new ways to not only work for debt service but also how to provide a return for investors,” Arrow Senior Living CEO Stephanie Harris told me at the conference. “So I think it’s going to be, how do we get better?”
Benchmark CEO Tom Grape struck a similar note, explaining that material increases in labor costs are not likely to go away, and that he and his team are trying to think differently as a result.
“It’s really causing us to have to look at our basic operating model … how we are staffing, and are there different ways we should be looking at it without compromising the quality of service,” he said.
In this members-only SHN+ Update, I analyze these trends and offer key takeaways, including:
One thing I heard again and again at ASHA is that the industry’s challenges in expenses and margins are not going away. Multiple attendees told me they thought the cost of staffing had reached a new baseline.
In the beginning of the pandemic, the hope was that all the industry needed to do to recover margins was increase occupancy and wait out cost pressures. In 2023, there is still occupancy to gain, but cost pressures have gotten more intense, and aggressive rate hikes cannot be repeated indefinitely. Now, more operators are expressing that they can’t address new problems with old solutions.
When I spoke with Senior Lifestyle CEO Jon DeLuca at ASHA, he told me he is open to experimenting with a wide range of creative solutions to margin compression, from retooling how meals are offered and paid for to finding new ways to boost length of stay.
Grape also expressed a broad willingness to try new approaches, not only because aggressive rate increases are not sustainable year after year, but because he is concerned about pricing too many people out of the market.
In addition to reconsidering how communities are staffed — with a focus on maintaining quality — he described a “clear trend” toward more services provided by third parties. He cited the example of transportation offered via rideshare companies.
Companies are not only thinking about how third parties can offer resident-facing services, but how they can handle back-office functions. Chicago-based Pathway to Living, for example, hired an external firm, Cielo Talent, to handle its recruiting functions.
At ASHA, two provider CEOs spoke about the benefits of working with a professional employer organization (PEO) to handle human resources functions, and noted that this practice appears to be gaining popularity in the sector.
One leader who brought this up was Ally Senior Living Founder and CEO Dan Williams, an industry veteran who previously held leadership roles with companies including Koelsch and Seasons.
Ally is utilizing a PEO for human resources and for accounting, which Williams said frees up leadership to focus more on running top-notch communities rather than spending time and energy making sure the back office is running smoothly.
“You can only have so many bubbles that you focus on,” he told my colleague Tim Mullaney. “I’d rather focus on making the community successful.”
PEOs are more widely used in other industries, but Williams believes there has been a “tradition” in senior housing for providers to be vertically integrated in terms of back office functions. Now, he said, “Times are changing.”
PEOs are most effective for small- to mid-size organizations, Williams said, as larger companies do gain benefits from doing more in-house. But during ASHA, I had a conversation with a senior living leader who said that senior living operating companies could stand to have far more efficient — and potentially leaner — corporate structures.
That conversation was not the first time I’ve heard this sentiment from senior living executives, and we might be seeing this play out at large publicly traded companies, namely Ventas (NYSE: VTR) and Brookdale (NYSE: BKD).
Earlier this week, Ventas announced that Executive Vice President of Senior Living Justin Hutchens has added a CIO title to his role, effectively combining two roles into one.
Brookdale Senior Living took a somewhat similar approach to corporate overhead this year when it announced that CFO Steve Swain and Executive Vice President of Operations Kevin Bowman are leaving the company. A single person, Dawn Kussow, now serves as both CFO and chief accounting officer, at least for the time being; while the EVP of operations position appears to be phased out entirely.
While Ventas and Brookdale are only two prominent senior housing companies, I suspect there will be more companies this year that combine or outright eliminate corporate positions in search of greater efficiency.
Operators that are willing to take chances on leaner corporate structures, new staffing models, and other changes could be looking at opportunities for growth, which would test these new approaches. However, they also should be carefully considering the financial terms of their contracts, as the insufficiency of the 5% management fee was another issue raised at ASHA.
The bottom line is that the industry is focused on changing for the future, and that includes veterans like DeLuca and Grape who are leading large and well-established companies as well as seasoned leaders like Williams who have started new ventures.
Hopefully, these efforts will help bring margins back and create an operating model that addresses short-term challenges while being sustainable in the long term.
A new senior living operator centered on providing memory care has a new capital partner and plans to grow by turning around distressed communities.
The Dallas-based operator, Ally Senior Living, will have four communities under operation in June. But the company is poised to grow in the months to come, as it has partnered with a to-be-revealed private equity backer with a $100 million fund to buy distressed assets, according to Founder and CEO Dan Williams.
“We’re going to specialize in turnarounds,” Williams told Senior Housing News.
Williams, who has experience turning around senior living communities and is the former president and COO of Seasons Living, said the company’s first goal will be to build up a base of operations through acquisitions and new management of communities in need of an operational overhaul.
Initially, Ally Senior Living will target Class A or Class B properties in top 50 metro areas around the country, with a preference for standalone memory care opportunities. The company has the “bandwidth and knowledge” to handle other communities through the care continuum, including active adult. And, Williams said the company also will consider third-party management opportunities, provided the opportunity is worthwhile.
“We want to build clusters and build regions, if we can,” Williams said.
Currently, the operator has communities in California and Florida.
Although many industry-watchers predicted the Covid-19 pandemic would lead to a wave of opportunities to buy senior living communities at below replacement costs, that trend has yet to largely materialize in 2022. Even so, Williams said he has seen a growing number of opportunities come across his desk in the last two months.
Once Ally Senior Living acquires or begins managing a senior living community, the operator takes a focus on fundamentals such as outreach, home visits, lead follow-up and employee engagement and recognition. The communities also will be plugged into an electronic health record system from tech provider Alis.
“It’s those kinds of fundamentals that will turn a building around pretty quickly,” Williams said.
Ally Senior Living also will look to promote from within the company instead of hiring out for new leaders to help build a culture of “hope, growth and opportunity,” Williams said. The operator is also planning to issue its corporate and regional leaders an ownership stake of the company, though he added exactly how is still being worked out.
Looking ahead, Williams anticipates Ally Senior Living will reach eight communities by the end of the year. And beyond that, he sees the company adding about five to six communities per year. Once the company builds up a suitable base of operations, Williams said he will look to tackle other industry issues, such as solving the middle-market — but one thing at a time.
“Our mantra is to be innovative, and we are experienced,” he said.
