Across the country, independent living and assisted living communities meet the needs of older adults with a wide range of services and amenities. However, not every senior needs or can afford the array of bundled services offered by many communities.
A promising type of senior housing, Apartments for Life — known as A4L — is providing an innovative alternative that can make aging in place more conducive for older adults.
A recent white paper by professional real estate services firm Rockwood Pacific explores the Apartments for Life concept. It also features The Villa at San Mateo as an example of a senior living community pursuing value propositions posed by the A4L model.
Adriene Iverson, Elder Care Alliance President and Chief Executive Officer, lends her thought leadership to the white paper, noting that the acquisition of The Villa at San Mateo is providing the opportunity to serve a wider socio-economic group of seniors. Currently, the nonprofit organization is looking into methods for supporting healthy aging in place with new services and use of technology.
Purpose of Apartments for Life
The white paper, authored by Rockwood Pacific Principal Francesco Rockwood and several other contributors, notes that demand for senior living continues to increase, but many markets remain underserved despite a spate of new construction. In addition, the paper notes, traditional communities are not an option for all older adults.
Apartment communities with unbundled services can provide an affordable option for many of these older adults, but construction of such senior apartments has lagged behind that of traditional communities.
Under the A4L model, apartment communities incorporate several features that provide a supportive aging-in-place environment: designs that allow residents to maintain independence as physical abilities decrease, concierge support for accessing services off-site, social opportunities, and pricing structures similar to traditional apartments.
The Villa at San Mateo
At The Villa at San Mateo, Elder Care Alliance is incorporating several of the features that define the A4L concept, including:
- A staff member dedicated to fostering connections between residents and the greater community.
- Using resources from the organization’s home office to best support residents across multiple communities.
- Creating a mixed-use and intergenerational campus. The Villa at San Mateo features retail and restaurant operations within the property on which the community is located.
Incorporating some tenets of the Apartments for Life model at The Villa at San Mateo is just one example of our commitment to engaging hearts, transforming lives and erasing boundaries.
