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Assisted residing residents of as we speak and tomorrow need high-quality well being care companies, bigger models and way of life facilities – they usually need it at a value they will fairly afford.
Assisted residing operators have traditionally provided both high-quality well being care and classy way of life facilities or extra middle-market or inexpensive companies, however not each. Staffing, the associated fee bases of tasks and different operational hurdles imply that many senior residing operators on the upper finish of the acuity spectrum, equivalent to assisted residing, are caught at a value flooring that’s already too excessive for some older adults.
And but, that is what residents need and can anticipate as they age. Based on Marlena Hemenway, chief expertise officer at The Geneva Suites, operators should grasp that society has catered to the boomers all through their whole lives.
“We have to perceive that assisted residing goes to have to vary with what they need,” Hemenway stated. “They need what they need, they usually need you to do what they need.”
As powerful as it could be to do, discovering the precise steadiness amongst these market forces is a excessive precedence for operators equivalent to Denver-based OneLife Senior Residing. The boomer era particularly has embraced tendencies like fast-casual eateries, wellness remedies and extra customization, they usually received’t give that up simply because they want extra care.
“The assisted residing residents coming in as we speak are the expert residents of 10 years in the past, and they also’re coming in with comorbidities, they’re coming in needing assist with extra ADLs, however they’re additionally coming in with this Ritz-Carlton expertise that they need,” stated OneLife CEO Dan Williams this week at RETHINK, an occasion co-hosted by SHN and sister publication Expert Nursing Information, targeted on the way forward for expert nursing and assisted residing.
Whereas it’s simple to say that boomers need all of it, and there may be absolutely some fact in that assertion, the fact that’s shaping up on the bottom in senior residing communities really tells a extra nuanced story. As an illustration, the incoming era of residents might want and even pay for high-end facilities that they really by no means make the most of, Williams and different executives I spoke with at RETHINK informed me. And Hemenway described the attraction of extra residential care fashions that emphasize a homelike environment and purpose-driven way of life versus a extra resort-like or hospitality-forward setting.
On this members-only SHN+ Replace, I analyze panels from our RETHINK occasion and knowledge on older grownup preferences and provide the next takeaways:
- What new knowledge says about older adults’ present preferences for unit dimension, facilities and prices
- Why assisted residing continues to be a “work in progress”
- How operators are shifting their companies to attraction to boomers
Larger models, extra way of life companies, decrease price
As NIC Founder and Nexus Perception Fellow Bob Kramer informed me a few years in the past, the boomers won’t be pleased with the “three hots and a cot” method of senior residing’s bygone years. Current knowledge reveals they may need way more.
For years, operators debated whether or not well being care or hospitality approaches would higher swimsuit the era. However now, I imagine operators have arrived on the conclusion that the boomers really need each well being care and hospitality on the identical time.
In 2025, assisted residing models with three or extra bedrooms carried a mean occupancy charge of 88%, “hinting that preferences in impartial residing could also be bleeding into assisted residing as residents transition by the continuum of care” and “suggests rising resident desire for extra spacious lodging, even amongst residents requiring help,” wrote NIC Senior Principal Omar Zahraoui.
A 2023 survey from ASHA and ProMatura Group revealed that boomers need communities that keep their independence and self-sufficiency. Certainly, among the many most “notable shifts” in client preferences amongst child boomers “is a need for lively and interesting existence,” wrote Trilogy Well being Companies Division Vice President Anthony Wilson final 12 months.
“Not like some earlier generations, who could have considered retirement as a time for leisure and leisure, child boomers are looking for alternatives for continued development, studying and journey,” he wrote. “Flexibility and customization in terms of their residing preparations is a transparent expectation amongst potential residents. Gone are the times of one-size-fits-all retirement communities.”
Some operators, like Juniper Communities, are creating methods that use know-how as a technique to meet needs for each customization and extra way of life companies. For instance, Juniper makes use of knowledge to customise sure way of life companies through its Catalyst wellness program with a perception that “the buyer as we speak could be very totally different than most of us suppose,” CEO Lynne Katzmann informed SHN.
Price can also be prime of thoughts for the boomers, whilst they exist as we speak because the wealthiest era of People based on median web value. On the upper finish of the associated fee spectrum, an “enhance in wealth greater than offsets the rise in lease” for residents, stated NIC MAP CEO Arick Morton throughout a webinar in Might. Besides, the business “can’t simply increase costs endlessly,” Morton stated.
“Even when penetration will increase, affordability limits are very actual for a couple of third of the inhabitants,” he added.
As I see it, assisted residing operators have a tricky street forward of them in assembly the expectations of the boomers. And maybe most worrying of all, firms could not know they’re failing to satisfy these expectations till it’s too late, or they may discover themselves one-upped by new choices coming into the market.
Throughout the panel at RETHINK, Longevity Senior Residing President and CEO Carl Hirschman identified that an organization as we speak may effectively purchase an older constructing and watch it refill, just for residents to go away for shinier, newer communities down the street.
“You should buy one thing that’s functionally out of date and probably get it full, simply because individuals don’t have an choice,” he stated. “However as quickly as growth begins occurring once more, that constructing goes to empty out, and also you’re going to need to go all the way down to your value level with a purpose to fill it up.”
Assisted residing ‘nonetheless a piece in progress’
With regards to the evolution of assisted residing, OneLife’s Williams is the primary to let you know that the corporate’s efforts are “nonetheless a piece in progress.” In 2025, OneLife is making an attempt to construct a mannequin that provides residents a number of eating choices, actions, wellness and all at a value that doesn’t break their checking account.
“We’re nonetheless seeing the primary brunt of child boomers, they actually haven’t hit but. So we actually simply don’t know an excessive amount of, not less than in my view, about precisely what they’re going to need,” he stated.
Widespread logic dictates that senior residing firms may attempt to create communities with every little thing a potential resident would ever need – and that may not really be the precise method. Throughout RETHINK, the panelists spoke of an fascinating phenomenon the place residents could need an amenity or service whereas they’re touring a neighborhood, solely to by no means use it as soon as they transfer in.
Hirschman in contrast the development to purchasing a Porsche that may drive 200 miles per hour, however by no means driving it anyplace close to that pace.
“Individuals need that potential, however all of that prices cash … they usually don’t need to pay more cash,” Hirschman stated.
Williams shared an anecdote of a resident who selected a OneLife neighborhood as a result of it had a pool.
“I stated, ‘Oh, that’s nice. You’re going to do water aerobics, you’re going to swim,” Williams stated. “And she or he stated, ‘Oh, no. No one’s ever going to see me in a washing swimsuit at this age.’”
Longevity takes the method that operators can nonetheless provide incoming residents most of the issues they need, inside purpose. Like Juniper’s Katzmann, Hirschman believes the important thing to attracting the boomers will lie partly in companies that enhance their variety of wholesome, lively years, not simply lengthening their lives.
“They’re used to doing chair yoga, and we’re … going to really do actual progressive resistance coaching to extend muscle mass, assist cut back falls and enhance bone development,” he stated.
Geneva Suites is a residential senior residing operator, and Hemenway stated it’s not all the time possible to construct communities with the precise facilities residents need, equivalent to bistros or swimming pools, given the small footprint concerned within the residential mannequin. That’s the reason the corporate is rooted within the Montessori technique, a philosophy meant to present residents extra goal and autonomy over their day by day lives.
“It might be so simple as serving to us put the silverware away as a result of they like sorting or ensuring the vegetation are watered as a result of that offers them pleasure,” Hemenway stated. “The extra we get into what these boomers really need and what offers them that means … I believe that’s the place we’re going to have numerous success.”
