Author: Tech Team

Eliminating the impossible is a great philosophy and slogan. Mather LifeWays actually operates under this principle. Mary Leary, CEO and President, is currently directing the efforts to make this occur for their customers – and employees… Read More >

Share this:

NOTHING about Mather’s-More Than a Cafe looks as if it’s aimed at people over 50. But the Chicago cafe, which could easily be mistaken for a large Starbucks, is much more than that, serving as a community hub, mostly for older people, with dozens of classes on topics like flower arranging, Egyptian history and digital safety.

In her six years as a member, Pat Knazze, 66, has taken line dancing and piano lessons and participated in over 50 seminars via Skype, including architecture classes that helped her qualify as a neighborhood docent.

As she ages, Ms. Knazze has also found another expected benefit: a caring group of neighbors who serve as a kind of substitute family.

“We’re social beings,” said Ms. Knazze, who is divorced. “And the cafe is a kind and loving group. I have multiple families that nurture me.” The Mather’s Cafe manager even attended Ms. Knazze’s mother’s funeral.

To appeal to baby boomers like Ms. Knazze, many community senior centers are getting up-to-date makeovers. There are about 11,500 senior centers in the United States, according to the National Council on Aging. They are increasingly offering everything from top-flight gyms to speed-dating sessions, wine tastings and Apple support groups.

Many are also shedding their names so that they can evolve beyond being seen as just places to play bingo. The senior center in Rochester, Minn., has become 125 Live, which just opened in a sleek, modernistic building with a teaching kitchen, big lap pool, pottery studio and a gym. Another in Minnesota is now Lakeville Heritage Center; it has yoga, Pilates and Zumba classes — and a motorcycle club.

“We have to move away from hot meals and bingo,” says Jim Firman, the chief executive of the National Council on Aging. “So there’s a lot of exciting innovation going on. The laggards will catch up or go away.”

Mather’s three Chicago cafes helped kick-start the transformation in 2000. They were inspired by Robert Putnam’s best-selling book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.” He talked about how people’s health and happiness were declining along with a sense of community, said Mary Leary, chief executive of the Evanston, Ill.–based nonprofit Mather LifeWays.

“So the cafes were conceived as a way to connect with others,” said Ms. Leary. “And it all starts with a cup of coffee.” Indeed, a bottomless cup of coffee costs only 95 cents at Mather’s Cafe, which also offers breakfast and lunch.

Mather’s Cafes take a holistic approach to aging, she said. Classes, aimed at adults 50 and older, include wellness, lifelong learning, fitness and entertainment. There are also telephone topics programs, such as chair yoga or eating well, for people who can’t attend. Innovative classes are devoted to edgier subjects like sexual identity and virtual reality. Fees are donation-only.

“We see aging on a spectrum,” Ms. Leary said. “Let’s help people stay active so they can age in place and connect with others.”

To spread its message, Mather’s holds workshops for other organizations. So far, people from 138 cities have attended and more than 40 other cafes have popped up, Ms. Leary said.

Like Mather’s Cafes, many senior centers are usually funded privately or by communities, so fees are typically nominal.

More a luxury club than a senior center, The Summit in Grand Prairie, Tex., charges $55 a year for adult residents 65 and older. The sunny 60,000-square-foot building has perks like an infinity edge pool, underwater treadmill and a hot tub. There is also a 100-seat movie theater, banquet rooms with full kitchens and an outdoor cafe with a grill.

“This is really an active adult facility,” said Amanda Alms, general manager of The Summit. “The city wanted to create a facility that was unlike any other.” Members have benefited by becoming more fit, finding artistic niches and making lifelong friends, she said.

For Wilfred Sanchez, 69, The Summit has become his home away from home. A Vietnam veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange, Mr. Sanchez has post-traumatic stress disorder and nerve diseases. So he uses The Summit’s pool for exercises like running laps or the underwater treadmill.

“PTSD makes me not want to go anyplace,” said Mr. Sanchez, who is also a retired information technology instructor. “But I don’t let it stop me.” Mr. Sanchez and his wife also visit the center to go to the movies, eat lunch and socialize with other veterans. “I’m so thankful,” he said.

Mr. Firman of the National Council on Aging says his goal is to transform the typical senior center into more of a longevity hub.

“There’s an evolution going on and a revolution as baby boomers age,” Mr. Firman said. “So we’re developing richer programming. We’re given the gift of longevity, so we have to spend it wisely.”

Many people are overwhelmed by the challenges of living longer, Mr. Firman said. “Health is complicated,” he said. “Finances are complicated. And there’s no playbook.”

The Senior Center in Charlottesville, Va., now includes a lifelong learning program on how to design a good life. The center also offers lots of ways to socialize, including singles gatherings, travel partner matches and three bands that members can join. There are also fitness classes, hiking programs and pickleball.

Peter Thompson, the center’s executive director, lamented the word “senior” in the name, though. “It’s a barrier,” Mr. Thompson said. “People don’t want to acknowledge that that’s them.”

The goal, he added, is creating centers that help people feel ageless. So a new center including features like a mind-body studio aimed at active adults is being planned.

Hansie Haier, 65, goes to the senior center often to socialize. She takes line dancing, yoga and tai chi. Ms. Haier, who is single, also teaches a weekly writing group there.

“The center helped me find my purpose,” said Ms. Haier, a retired psychiatric nurse who now writes short stories. “I’m constantly learning new ways of living. A good center helps keep the brain functioning. That’s really important.”

Isolation is a potential risk for millions of aging adults, said Shannon Guzman, a senior policy research analyst at the AARP Public Policy Institute. But new forms of social engagement are emerging in the digital world. Selfhelp Community Services’ Virtual Senior Center in New York helps homebound older adults keep in touch via computer: They can attend group museum tours, Shakespeare discussions or even take laughter yoga.

“We’re building an online community,” said David Dring, executive director of Selfhelp Innovations. “Seniors can create these cyberclassrooms.” They can also create ongoing virtual friendships.

Ms. Knazze says she feels deeply fulfilled and cared for at Mather’s Cafe. “Now,” she said, “I want to share that with others.”

Share this:

To date, no studies have been conducted to determine the impact that living in a life plan community has on seniors’ long-term health and wellness.

For that reason, the research service arm of Evanston, Illinois-based senior housing provider Mather LifeWays is partnering with a Big Ten university to analyze that very subject.

Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging (MLIA) is facilitating the landmark five-year study in collaboration with Northwestern University to support and inform the senior housing industry. The MLIA research team will conduct the quantitative aspect of the study, while Northwestern will contribute to the qualitative component, according to a press release.

The outcomes and overall impact to life plan community living is an “under-explored” topic, according to Cate O’Brien, PhD, assistant vice president and director of MLIA.

“There are a number of reasons to believe the impact is a positive one, most notably that life plan communities offer an opportunity-rich environment with programs, amenities, services and health care that support wellness, sense of community, and opportunities to find fulfillment, and this study will help to qualify—and quantify—those beliefs,” O’Brien said in the press release.

To complete the study, MLIA is working alongside several senior housing industry groups, including LeadingAge, the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), as well as senior housing providers Life Care Services (LCS) and Moorings Park. Chicago-based specialty investment bank Ziegler will also participate in the study.

At least 50 life plan communities will be recruited for the study, according to MLIA.

Participating communities and organizations will receive an annual report on key findings—such as quality of life, self-reported health, and additional health-related metrics. A one-page brief specific to a participating community will be issued to them if more than 30 of its residents participate.

At the end of the five-year study, each community will also receive a copy of the full report.

Share this:

With the senior living industry facing a workforce crisis, it’s becoming increasingly urgent to draw talented students to the sector. Two different projects, one involving non-profit provider Mather Lifeways and the other involving commercial real estate firm JLL, showcase the potential payoffs if senior living professionals and residents can engage with college students. The projects also highlight some of the challenges in reaching a critical mass of young people.

Inspiring the next generation has been a major goal of the Future Leaders Council of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC). Last year, members of the Council launched a “Connect the Ages” campaign to recruit young talent to the industry. In addition, Council members have set a goal of each speaking at one college every year.

That’s what took Joel Mendes, a senior vice president in JLL’s seniors housing capital markets team, to the Ohio State University last fall. There, Mendes participated in a presentation on senior living to students in the university’s real estate program. About 50 students attended, making it a standing-room only event. A handful of students then decided to make senior living a centerpiece of their submission to the eighth annual Eisenberg Real Estate Challenge.

For the challenge, students had to devise plans for an actual parcel of land on the Lake Michigan shoreline just north of Chicago, in the community of Waukegan, Illinois. The OSU team consisted of five students representing different disciplines, including architecture, real estate and finance. They put together their proposal, received further mentorship from Mendes to help shape it, and in April learned that they had been awarded an honorable mention—essentially taking second place in the competition.

While this is just one example of a senior living professional doing meaningful outreach to students, there are several positive takeaways.

For one, there was the large turn-out for Mendes’ presentation. This reflects that students have a strong interest in learning about senior living, according to Seth Brennoch, who was on the team that submitted to the Eisenberg competition. He recently graduated from OSU with a double major in finance and real estate.

“That was one of our best-attended events,” Brennoch told Senior Housing News. “It does seem likely that it was a topic [students] were interested in.”

This interest likely stems from several factors. One is that OSU’s real estate faculty does a good job of explaining a variety of property types to students, including senior living, said Brennoch. Another reason could be that students are having personal experiences with family members entering senior living, he noted. He himself was familiar with typical rents in senior housing because of a family member in assisted living.

There’s also the fact that senior living is gaining more visibility through case competitions like the Eisenberg; some members of the OSU team themselves had gotten interested in senior living when they saw it included in a case competition at Villanova.

“When we saw that, we saw that the financial aspect of it was interesting, different than what we were used to seeing with other types of properties,” Ray Herrera, a finance and accounting major who was on the Eisenberg team, told SHN. “I kept it in the back of my mind for future use. When Joel came to campus, it solidified.”

Despite the successful outcome of his visit to OSU, Mendes has some concerns about student outreach. While visiting individual colleges is certainly worthwhile, there needs to be a larger-scale, concerted effort to recruit young people to the industry, he believes. And that has proven a tough goal to make progress on.

He and other Council members have done outreach to organizations such as the Department of Labor, Department of Education and national guidance counselor trade associations, but have not been able to get much traction, he said. In part, volunteers in the industry—even highly motivated ones—simply might not have the bandwidth needed to make an impact with these types of groups, he said.

And the industry also needs to think carefully about its ambassadors; he suspects that as an investment banker, he faced an added hurdle in trying to convince people that his outreach was truly motivated by good intentions and was not meant to directly make him or his firm money.

So, he’s encouraged that senior living trade associations are taking a more focused and methodical approach on this front. For instance, Argentum recently hired Brent Weil as vice president of workforce development. LeadingAge launched a Center for Workforce Solutions last year.

And NIC itself may be aiding the effort by carrying out and expanding its mission of gathering and distributing robust data about the senior living industry. This is something that the OSU team craved, according to Herrera.

“Information is not readily available,” he said. “And different projects have different dynamics [than ours], the pro formas are more complicated, [so] I think having resources to give more guidance to figure out the economics behind a senior living development, that would help.”

Aged to Perfection

While JLL was engaging with college students interested in the real estate aspect of senior housing, Mather LifeWays was connecting with students focused on social work.

Mather Lifeways operates one life plan community in Tucson, Arizona and one just north of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois, where the organization is based. The nonprofit also runs the Institute on Aging, a research organization that studies and develops best practices in aging services.

In 2016, the Institute awarded a prize to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which had developed a course called “Aged to Perfection.” That course was held at Saint John’s on the Lake near downtown Milwaukee, and featured residents of that CCRC leading classes on a range of topics related to aging.

The Institute on Aging then decided that Mather LifeWays could replicate the course, providing an opportunity to more formally evaluate how the class influences students’ interest in pursuing a career in aging services, and what unique learning aspects might be occurring with older adults being the course instructors, Senior Research Associate Roscoe Nicholson told SHN.

So, the Institute partnered up with Loyola University in Chicago to offer a version of the Aged to Perfection course. It was offered as an independent study this past spring semester. Residents of The Mather, in Evanston, planned the curriculum along with Marcia Spira, Ph.D., the associate dean for academics in Loyola’s School of Social Work.

“Resident interest in participating was high, we had a waiting list for residents who wanted to participate,” Nicholson told SHN.

Generally, residents led class discussions on topics in which they had some particular interest or expertise—a pastor led the class on spirituality, for example. The students were a mix of undergraduates and graduate students, some of whom were already interested in working with older adults and some who were interested in learning more about aging topics.

Initial feedback indicated that both residents and students found the course rewarding.

“I think on the student side, some of them expressed a bit of surprise at how open and willing the older adult instructors were to sharing, to discussing these topics, to really bring out the depth and nuance to their experience of aging and really share some quite personal … life details as these topics were being discussed,” Nicholson said.

Operationally, it’s a relatively easy proposition for senior living providers to facilitate these courses, Nicholson said. Costs might include transportation for bringing students to the senior living community, but costs in general are minimal, Nicholson said. One challenge is going through the necessary steps with the university to add a course to the official catalog—it’s a goal for The Mather to have this listed as a regular class rather than an independent study in the future, and to grow enrollment.

“In the experience of Milwaukee, the first time they had enrollment around what we had with just under 10 students, and now they’ve got waitlists every time they offer it,” Nicholson said.

A more formal evaluation of the course is underway and will be produced as a report that is shared through senior living industry channels, to encourage other organizations to start organizing these types of classes.

Like JLL’s Mendes, Nicholson believes that more systematized and widespread outreach to students is needed to bolster the senior living industry in the future, and he believes that the Aged to Perfection model is promising in this regard.

“You have so many senior living options in proximity to colleges and universities,” he said. “It’s absolutely scalable and reproducible.”

Share this: