I always enjoy reading Jack Cumming comments. When I was brand new to CCRC living back in 2013, the state where our community was located (Texas) did not have a CCRC Residents Association, but I heard about NaCCRA. Jack made me feel most welcome as a new member. But he went beyond that when he linked me up with a bankruptcy attorney when the non-profit Texas organization (5 CCRCs, 2 HUD housing projects, 1 Assisted LIving Facility and management of 3 Texas Veteran Homes) filed Chapter 11. I learned about the petition process to serve on the federal bankruptcy court's Unsecured Creditor Committee, since residents with refund contracts qualified. Here I had thought I would be on the receiving end of a nice, steady, reliable, responsive retirement life, but my eyes were opened. Over the years, I've shared my "Now guess what management has done/not done?" with Jack, and he was more than patient as a good sounding board.
The comment he made in his open letter posted here about "semantics" prompts me to share a very recent example. Ten years ago my significant other (also named Jack) and I moved into a North Carolina CCRC after wrapping up our Texas experience. This community had been built and owned by the county's non-profit hospital system, opening in 2003. After we had lived here two years, the hospital system outsourced our management to a single site CCRC organization located 30 miles west of us. Five years later, this CCRC organization purchased us. That purchase was 3 years ago. As President of the Res Assn, I was an ex officio (non-voting) member of the owner's Board of Directors. Last fall our owner merged with another North Carolina senior living organization. We residents are paying for two corporate CEO's (and two CFO's), in each case waiting for one of the two to blink, as some put it. This new non-profit wanted a small Board, so there was only room for two resident members --- one from each side of the merger. However --- and here are the semantics -- they selected a resident representative from each community (there are 5 CCRCs) to serve on --- ta dah --- a "Resident Advisory Board to the Kintura Board of Directors." Clever use of the word "Board," don't you think? Maybe they use that title in response to questions about resident governance.
I'll end this missive by thanking Jack for sharing his thoughts.... for me, it's been over the years. In the meantime, probably like some of you, I'm down in the trenches, without influence over LeadingAge. My challenge is what happens on site. I'm scratching my head wondering why a CCRC's management doesn't run a major policy change or "issue" by some of us who really want to help residents understand what's going on -- for example, why does management distribute/publish a new policy or rule without first obtaining input from resident "thought leaders"? Some of us could point out information gaps, call attention to questions that will inevitably come up, point to inconsistencies, and note where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Instead, we're considered nit-pickers, interfering with the staff's "team effort."
Thanks to people like Jack, I'm hanging in there -- haven't given up yet. Jack, keep your words of wisdom coming.