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Handle with care – assisted living retirement residences
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April, 2010

By Amie Silverwood

The offerings are familiar to anyone who has been shopping around for a new condo: a salt-water pool, on-site spa, fine dining room, casual diner, bowling alley, art studio and the list goes on. There are one or two bedroom suites with or without dens and garden flats with familiar layouts and trendy designs. But this isn’t a condominium, it’s a retirement residence. As the baby boomers age, it is becoming more difficult to tell them apart.

  

In the 1980s, the gated adult lifestyle communities in the United States began to cater to aging populations by offering care as needed to older persons who preferred to remain in their homes instead of moving to a hospital-styled long-term care facility. These retirement residences that provided “assisted living” came to Canada in the mid to late 1990s and have been very popular since.

Assisted living residences pride themselves on being similar to condominiums at first glance. They offer a variety of suite styles, sizes and layouts and the grounds offer gardens and patios where residents can enjoy nice weather and get fresh air. They host an impressive list of amenities to keep residents active and entertained and to encourage plenty of socialization. Popular trends in condo living are reflected in the choices that meet prospective residents. The goal is to provide residents with a truly luxurious space in which to enjoy their retirement as if they were on an endless cruise designed for seniors.
These buildings differ, however, in how the bills are paid. Unlike condominiums with shared ownership, assisted living retirement residences often only offer rented units and are only rented to older persons in need of care or who will need some assistance in the near future. Also unlike condominiums, they offer meal packages and other forms of assistance that is often required by seniors such as nurses on site or laundry services.

The service-enhanced condominium that assisted living residences offer appeal to healthier, younger seniors who wouldn’t consider themselves frail enough for around the clock care or would like some help with the housekeeping. A widow or widower who doesn’t cook may find the meal plans appealing or be glad to relocate to a community of active seniors instead of remaining alone in an empty house or relocating to a condominium full of strangers with which he or she may have little in common.

Assisted living residences guarantee more of a community than condominiums can offer since condominiums often have small suites but are located in bustling areas that offer everything a condo dweller would need. Retirement residences bring the entertainment within the compound instead of locating the compound near to the entertainment. But there are many condominiums to which this distinction doesn’t apply.

Recently, some residences, such as Origin Evergreen, have been offering units up for ownership and welcoming even younger and healthier residents who may not need care but like having the choice to add services as they’re required without having to move. Seniors can now downsize from a house to a residence that offers all the services they foresee requiring down the road without first moving to a condominium that does not offer any services or special amenities for seniors.

Retirement residences have a stigma to overcome since the “homes” available in the past were restrictive and designed for efficiency, not the comfort of residents. As baby boomers tour the market looking for suitable accommodations for their parents, they’ve been disappointed in what is offered and loathe the thought of ending up in such dismal quarters. Assisted living is an answer to this problem: offering the freedom and privacy of a home but the security of a long-term care facility that provides the support seniors need to age independently.

Moving forward, the trend will continue as assisted living competes more directly with condominiums for unit-owners and land.

In the past, retirement residences were built on the fringe of communities where land is cheap and abundant but that is going to change according to Elisa Prashad. “As boomers lead this industry in a new direction and redefine what it means to age, they will create a demand for homes in urban and other well-located settings that developers and operators will satisfy.”

Baby boomers will want to continue to live in prime locations close to transit corridors, on waterfronts and in well established communities – the kind of properties developers eye for condominiums. The retirement industry will evolve to meet their demands.

Condominiums developed with older and more affluent residents in mind may consider adding more services to remain attractive as assisted living gets more popular. Besides 24-hour security and valet parking, consider 24-hour access to emergency healthcare with an on-call nurse or a personal emergency response system. Seniors who live alone may also feel more secure if there’s staff on-site willing to check in on them daily or if they haven’t left their units recently.

As baby boomers age, they’ll want to live at home for as long as they can. Whether home will be a condominium or assisted living residence depends entirely on what services and amenities are offered by each.		  
 
 
 
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