✨ Resident Engagement

Obviously, maintaining high occupancy is critical for the health of a CCRC community and most of the online guidelines I've seen recently (e.g. Kiplinger's) have recommended that prospective residents look for communities with 90+% occupancy. After bemoaning our community's low occupancy for years and promising to explore ways to address it, our administration and board are now selling the message that the community is perfectly "sustainable" at 80%. The administration hasn't regularly shared occupancy data since back in 2021. My question to others is: how transparent and open are your administration and board about occupancy rates? Are occupancy trends shared - in writing - on a consistent basis?

Thanks!

Our community publishes the occupancy rates every month on the TV school. The rates are also mentioned at the Resdients' Council Finance Committee which then reports at the Residents' Council meetings which are open to all residents.

The NaCCRA Financial Soundness Handbook mentions occupancy below 85% is a concern unless it is a start-up community.

Thanks for the referral to the NaCCRA Financial Soundness Handbook, Ann. Very helpful.

Our resident Finance Committee gets occupancy information on a monthly basis and the occupancy is reported each month at our residents Town Hall. The Finance Committee gets the information from the CFO and the Town Hall gets it from the Executive Director.

That sounds like a very high level of transparency - hope we can get there.

At our community, occupancy rates are regularly reported at Director's Dialogue which is held most months. They are reported by level of care comparing budgeted level to actual level. The slides with that are later made available. Our IL occupancy has been very high, and management has used that to justify higher annual monthly fee increases than most CCRCs in our state (the rates can't be too high if we're able to fill units when they become vacant, they say). Occupancy rates for other levels of care have often been a problem. A problem developed with Skillen Nursing due to the change in common practices on rehab after surgery so SN is used much less now for that than previously. We have never been able to get a Certificate of Need to accept people into Skilled Nursing from outside because supply is definitely higher than demand in our area. Our new competitors are mostly for-profits which do not include SN (substituting a higher level of Assisted Living) due to that problem.

You give no clue where you are. There might be particular circumstances in your area to explain the relatively low occupancy. If there aren't, it would seem to be a problem.

Bill Samuel, Ingleside at King Farm, Rockville, MD.

Those are helpful thoughts, Bill. Other than increased competition (which is true everywhere - - senior living facilities are blooming like mushrooms!) there's nothing that good marketing couldn't fix in our community.

Your note strikes a cord as we (Finance Committee) receive substantial monthly and YTD data from our accounting department, including financial results and occupancy rates in IL, comprehensive care, assisted living and memory care. While I've only been a resident for 2 and 1/2 years, I've gotten very involved in Blakehurst's finances (Towson, MD) due to my professional career. Historically we have maintained between a 92-94% combined occupancy rate, while our principal competitors have between an 85-95% occupancy. 

Our marketing department is headed by a very senior, high energy, highly productive woman who works the local market better than competitors in my mind. Her wait list is full and we turn over a substantial number of units annually. She knows our competitors very well.

I believe your board and managment is accepting of less than good results. While you have referenced one source for information, I offer these investment banking firms: Ziegler, Sims, KeyBanc-Cane Brothers as potential sources of data. Of them Ziegler has numerous annual industry studies that you should be able to access through internet searching. Also, are your annual financial statments audited? If yes, hopefully the firm has CCRC industry experience, whcih can be useful to the board and residents to compare and contrast performance.

I'd also add that such low occupancy you quote would limit cash flow needed to be plowed back into the facility to keep modern and appealing to potential new residents, it seems to me. Our primary competitors have raised over $35 million+ each to expand and refresh their facilities in the past 3 years. We are undertaking a substantial renovation soon, too.

You're on the right path, you just need more teammates!

Regards, Garland 

Thanks for the referral to other information sources, Garland. And for the encouragement!

The facilities mentioned in the responses must be non-profit. My mom lived in a non-profit which changed to For Profit about 10 years ago. No information is ever shared. Top secret although we saw my mom's entire floor change from 100% occupancy to less than half. She hated living alone at the end of a long hall. We knew from others that the facility began renting which of course meant that few, if any, new residents were "buying" into the facility and thus the return of the contracted buy-in fee of a deceased family member was never completed. Management was asked repeatedly at the Residents Council Meeting if units were being rented but, of course, management was a master of replying without an answer. Occupancy plummeted to 43 percent!

Recently, the facility was sold and 170 legacy families were offered 70 cents on the dollar (of $30 million+ owed) with the unspoken knowledge that we might get nothing if they declare bankruptcy.

Thanks Julie, that's helpful information. I've heard of other CCRCs that have (sadly) gone through a situation like that.

Here is Ziegler's latest occupancy report.

http://eziegler.com/Files/SL_ZNEWS_082823.pdf