Welltower Building A Manhattan Tower
Welltower and Hines will be developing Welltower’s first urban high rise senior care community in Manhattan. I, for one, can’t wait to take a tour of Hines and Welltower’s high rise assisted living and memory care development right in the middle of midtown Manhattan. And while I’m at it, I could visit Maplewood Senior Living’s similar development a little more than a mile north on the Upper East side of Manhattan. The Welltower community will be 15 stories tall, which is unusual for seniors housing, but not for me. The CCRC I am most familiar with from personal experience has 25 stories and is located in Florida in a considerably less urban environment. Height was never an issue,... Read More »
Brookdale Laser Focusing On The Future
With fewer distractions and increasing stability, a renewed focus on increasing cash flow and value. So, management at Brookdale Senior Living has got some religion. It has been on the road trying to sell their story to investors. And it appears that selling the bulk of their owned real estate is off the table, which I agree with. They will continue with selective dispositions, although not as many as I think they should, and they have basically put their landlords on notice that as leases come up for renewal, they want to negotiate the lease rates down for the underperformers, or they will walk. Also good news. In addition, they are under-promising with the expectation that they will over... Read More »
Medicaid and Assisted Living
As Managed Care expands into Medicaid, we may see more Medicaid-funded assisted living, and the jury is still out on what that means. Let’s face it, there will be a growing number of people over age 80 who will not be able to afford to live in assisted living and memory care communities, at least not the ones being built today. Even fewer can afford skilled nursing, with monthly private pay rates two and three times higher than assisted living. So what’s going to happen? Some people say home- and community-based care will fill the void, but that is not always cheaper nor the best option. Some states have done a good job with Medicaid waivers to financially support lower-income seniors who... Read More »
Media Bias Against SNFs Again
The New York Times is at it again, and the reporters don’t want to do some simple math. Well, well, it looks like The New York Times is at it again. Two weeks ago it had a sensationalist story about residents “held” in nursing facilities. Last weekend, they continued on the theme of the disabled being confined in nursing facilities and ready to go home. The gist of the story was that home and community based care is what the elderly and disabled want (true), and that it is cheaper to boot (not so true). In fact, they cited Washington State as claiming that they can care for seven people at home for the cost of one person in a nursing facility. Really? The Washington Medicaid daily... Read More »
